Ryann Miller and Kori Brus revisit a website they critiqued six months ago. With a higher profile for social media, more ways to give, better navigation and a revamped home page, it's now a winner.
Check out the improvements they describe, then use Ryann's and Kori's tips to boost engagement and giving through your own charity's website.
There's a world of difference between strangers who interrupt your supper, mangle your name, then try to sell you new windows - for your apartment - and an effective, properly targeted telephone campaign. Do it right and you can raise more money, says Lynne Dulaney, director of communications at Calgary's Operation Eyesight Universal.
"Doing it right" means working with people who've already shown some interest in your organization. Operation Eyesight contacted lapsed and annual donors to renew awareness and giving from the first group and offer a monthly giving plan to the second group. Later they used callers to follow up on a holiday mailing to lapsed and inactive supporters.
When looking at a charity, it's important to consider the whole picture rather than just the numbers, says Imagine Canada CEO Marcel Lauzière. In response to hasty, sometimes shallow attempts to rank charities by a few financial ratios taken out of context, Imagine Canada launched CharityFocus, a much richer, more insightful tool to aid donor decision-making, on February 15.
The site transforms Canada Revenue Agency's T3010 data into graphs and other vivid visuals. Every registered charity already has a profile on CharityFocus that reflects its latest T3010 filing. Now that the site is launched, each charity can upload additional material to display the stories behind the numbers: annual reports, program information, fundraising policies, videos and links to social media platforms.
Eight years after the Canadian Association of Gift Planners placed the Banyan Tree Foundation on its list of "buy low, sell high tax shelter donation arrangements" (Canadian Fundraiser, December 15, 2003), the longest-running Canada Revenue Agency-labelled "sham donation" arrangement in Canada launched what could be its final chapter.
Along with the foundation, Rochester Financial Limited, Promittere Capital Group Inc., Promittere Asset Management Inc. and Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP agreed to contribute $11,000,000, without admitting liability, to settle a class action brought by Banyan donors.
A new section was added to the Charities and Giving Web pages for organizations that are recognized as qualified donees. These organizations can issue donation receipts and receive gifts from registered charities.
