Today’s post is the second of a two-part series courtesy of Isabelle Jetté, a fellow in Fenton’s NYC office.

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In this two-part series, we explore how nonprofits can leverage Groupon and other daily coupon sites for visibility, lead generation and fundraising purposes. While the first post discussed the opportunities that such sites offer nonprofits, since many of these opportunities are dependent upon a business partnership, we also wanted to outline the benefits available to businesses (the focus of this post), so that in turn you could develop a compelling ask to a prospective partner that also shows “what’s in it for them.”

For one, businesses stand to benefit from a nonprofit partnership via Groupon (or other coupon site) because they can capitalize on latent cause marketing synergies that wouldn’t otherwise be available to them if they simply wrote a check and handed it over to their cause of choice. By publicly supporting a charity via a matching gift on Groupon for instance, it allows the business partner to generate goodwill among their existing constituencies, the charity’s, as well as the coupon site’ users due to the halo effect created by their association with the said nonprofit. Groupon also publicizes its deals via a comprehensive social media network, which affords the business partner enhanced visibility and the potential for their deal to be picked up by the media (which happened in the case of DonorsChoose.org and partner Pershing Square Foundation, discussed in last week’s post). Plus, through Groupon’s crowdsourcing ability, they enjoy the potential to secure new customers, which can more than offset the costs of their donation over the long-term.

Other ways for nonprofits and partners to collaborate can also involve the partner offering a discounted offer via Groupon (or other coupon site), outlining in the deal editorial that for every purchase, a donation will be made to the charity. When users subsequently come to redeem their coupons at the partner’s business location, both the partner and nonprofit can look for ways to upsell onsite and capture data for future cultivation.

While not a substitute to traditional fundraising tactics, Groupon and other daily coupon sites do offer some exciting advertising, fundraising/gift matching and selling opportunities to the savvy, enterprising nonprofit and its business partners. Taking the time to evaluate and identify the business partners and daily coupon site(s) that align most closely with your objectives, while conducting an assessment of all potential opportunities, costs and anticipated returns, will be the key to ensuring the best possible outcome for your foray into the online couponing world.

Today’s post is the first of a two-part series courtesy of Isabelle Jetté, a fellow in Fenton’s NYC office.

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While online coupon service powerhouse Groupon has recently been the subject of scrutiny for its ad spot during the Super Bowl, business has hardly skipped a beat. Groupon’s revenues have been going gangbusters (rumored to be at the lofty tune of $800 million to $2 billion for 2010) and most of its 26.5 million users and featured businesses would agree that it’s been a win-win for all parties involved. Several similar sites have also emerged, including LivingSocial and BuyWithMe, which certainly attests to Groupon’s successful business model.

So, the big question for nonprofits is: Can we leverage this new channel to support fundraising efforts and initiatives? And if so, how?

The answer is yes, opportunities do exist that can fulfill the interests of the nonprofit sector, its business partners (the focus of the second part of this two-part series), the daily coupon site and its users. For nonprofits, Groupon and other sites boast an attractive audience largely comprised of college-educated women aged 18-34 with moderate to significant disposable income. While on the younger side of the traditional “ideal” donor, tapping this discerning, cause-conscious yet difficult-to-reach segment can afford charities an opportunity to cultivate the next generation of philanthropists and get them onto the “gift ladder.”

In addition, some sites like Groupon allow nonprofits to advertise on their site for free. Charities can also actively benefit from a “Groupon” deal, whereby each coupon sold is matched by an underwriting partner and 100% of the monies raised go towards the cause. This makes the ask that much more compelling for site users, as not only are they supporting a great cause, but they also have the satisfaction of knowing that every dollar they donate is effectively doubled. The only real “catch” for nonprofits in this instance is that Groupon will place the onus on them to find a partner. The Chronicle of Philanthropy summarizes a great example of how matched giving can work on Groupon: DonorChoose.org partnered with the Pershing Square Foundation last May and was able to raise $162,000 on Groupon to support public education projects.

Moreover, in the world of hyper-segmentation, a myriad of daily coupon sites are emerging to meet the needs of the many market segments out there. Moms have notably and appreciably been the sweet spot of several such sites, including Plum District and DoodleDeals – depending on your cause, these may well be worthwhile investigating. New York’s best established mom daily coupon site, PoppinsPerks, also donates 10% of all its sales to DonorsChoose.org (yet another great coup for this early adopting NGO of the daily coupon cyberspace). Other sites (CauseOn, GivShop, Philanthroper) seek to do well by doing good while appealing to a cause-conscious audience and donating a portion of their revenues to local charities. Groupon, which originally evolved from The Point, an online platform that allows individuals and groups to galvanize action for causes they care deeply about, is now looking to go back to its roots by introducing G-Team, an added layer to a Groupon deal that will allow a social good to take place if a pre-determined tipping point is reached (e.g., if X number of Groupons are sold for a given deal, then a local book shop will donate Y number of books to a public library).

Please tune in next week for the second part of this two-part series, where we will explore how running a cause-related campaign on daily coupon sites can be advantageous to businesses, and how nonprofits can attract business partners to align with them.

A new national survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project throws some light on how technology is being used to build and activate civic and social groups.

I agree with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone that technology alone can’t be an agent of change…“it’s going to be people, it’s going to be humanity.”

That said, the Pew report found that the slice of humanity that is online is more likely to be part of a group than non-Internet users (80% compared to 56%). No big surprise there.

Dig deeper in the report and you’ll find these insights into the gender split is when it comes to what kind of groups men and women are self-selecting for online. A snapshot:

Groups where women were more involved than men:

• Religious or spiritual groups (43% women vs 37% men)
• Consumer groups (26% vs 21%)
• Support groups for people with illness or personal situation (21% vs 16%)
• Organizations for older adults like AARP (17% vs 13%)
• Partner groups like the PTA (16% vs 9%)
• Literary groups, ie book clubs (15% vs 7%) and
• Performance or arts groups (12% vs. 7%)

Men were more likely to belong to sports-related groups like fan groups for teams, recreation leagues for themselves or their children, and gaming communities.

The genders balanced out when it came to groups like political organizations; labor unions; environmental groups, ethnic or cultural groups; and charitable or volunteer groups like Habitat for Humanity.

One factoid I found interesting is that low-income adults (earning less than $30K) and African Americans are slightly more likely than others to cite “meeting meeting people who share my interests” as a major reason to participate in social and civic groups. Something to keep in mind if you’re reaching out to these groups.

If you were to do a “man on the street” survey in the United States asking the question, “Who is the first person that comes to mind when I say the word ‘philanthropist’?” the vast majority would likely respond with Gates, Buffet or Soros, if they’re able come up with anyone at all. If a prominent local landmark is named after a philanthropist, they might come up with a different name, but odds are that person is man too.

If you do a Google search for the word “philanthropist” the first several pages are dominated by male entries; Wikipedia lists no women in its “modern philanthropists” section.

The United States is known for its philanthropic culture and giving spirit. Natural disasters trigger an outpouring of cash donations. The earthquakes in Haiti, for example, resulted in $1.3 billion raised by U.S.-based non-governmental organizations and private charities.

Americans’ generosity is not new. Alexis de Tocqueville does not use the word “philanthropy” in Democracy in America, but some modern scholars interpret Tocqueville’s writing on the American phenomenon of forming “associations” as a comment on our philanthropic spirit. Tocqueville can be forgiven for not including women in his analysis, given the status of women in society at that time. But times have changed.

Recently, there has been some focus on the surging role of high-income women’s rise in philanthropy as witnessed with the success of the Women Moving Millions campaign by the Women’s Funding Network. But focusing on wealthy women alone creates a narrow understanding of women’s philanthropy.

A new study by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University shows that women, across nearly all income levels, are more likely to give and give more than men after controlling for education, income and other factors that affect giving.

Specifically, in the income level of $23,509 or less, women are 28 percent more likely to give than men; in the income level between $23,509 — $43,500, women are 32 percent more likely to give; in the income level between $43,5000 — $67,532, women are 49 percent more likely to give; in the income level between $67,532 — $103,000, women are 43 percent more likely to give than men; and in the income level of $103,000 and more, women are 26 percent more likely to give than men.

And it’s not only that they are more likely to give, but they give at higher levels — nearly twice as much in many cases (the exception being in the $23,509 — $43,500 income bracket).

Women’s philanthropy has been shaped to a significant extent by women’s shifting economic position and social roles. Income and education in particular are strong predictors of giving. Women have made notable gains in both over the past three decades. More women — 59.9 percent — are in the labor force today. The proportion of working women with a college degree roughly tripled from 1970 to 2008: 36 percent of these women held college degrees in 2008, compared with 11 percent 30 years ago.

Women today are also earning more than ever before, although gender imbalances persist. In 1979, women working full-time earned 62 percent of what men did; in 2008, women’s earnings were 80 percent of men’s. The proportion of wives earning more than their husbands also has grown. In two decades’ time (1987 to 2007), the percentage of working wives who earn more than their working husbands grew by eight percent to a total of 26 percent.

The Women’s Philanthropy Institute report is illuminating, not because it proves women are “better” than men because they tend to give more, but because it disrupts conventional wisdom about what a philanthropist looks like in terms of both gender and income.

The word “philanthropy” literally means “the love of people” and is now colloquially understood as someone who gives money to a cause or charity. Research from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute show that women, in general, score higher on motives of care and empathy. However, further research needs to examine other motivations for giving by gender — particularly across cultures.

In the meantime, nonprofits should take note of the gender gap in giving. They should be deepening their engagement with women in their fundraising efforts, whether it’s a $10 text to the Red Cross, $35 a month to sponsor a sister at Women for Women, or the $1 million check to Citymeals-on-Wheels.

Beyond the conclusion that women should be counted among philanthropists’ ranks, this new report encourages us to go beyond focusing only on the big givers. Americans at all income levels are giving. They should all be proud to call themselves philanthropists. Tocqueville saw it in us and perhaps now we can see it in ourselves — women included.

Today’s post comes courtesy of Nicole Stipp, an account coordinator in Fenton’s NYC office. Nicole was on site at the UN Digital Media Lounge, billed as a venue that “brings the conversations from this historic UN Summit out of the halls of the UN and into 92nd Street Y — where digital media will deliver it to the world.”

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The day in the UN Digital Media Lounge started off with a chocolate bar from Save The Children – it was a sign of how great the rest of the afternoon would be.

The first panel was a fantastic mashup of a teenage member of Key Club and the leaders of DoSomething, Girl Up and Women for Women International, a long-time Fenton client. W4W’s  Zainab Salbi, an incredible woman and the dynamic leader told us about women she had met 17 years ago. Victims of the Bosnian “rape camps” or “rape factories,” they told her to “move on, help someone else.” These women had lost their hope.

As someone who traveled to a post-conflict area where rape was used as a tool of war – I thought Zainab captured something that we don’t often talk about: you must give people hope and you must consider it as part of your aid programs. It’s a very Harvey Milk-like ideal (“You gotta give ‘em hope!”), but studies (AusAid & DFID) show that even if physical needs are tended to through international aid, psychological needs are what will make the difference. Mandela didn’t hand out food from his podium – he handed out hope. But maybe we don’t talk about hope a lot because it’s not exactly tangible and certainly doesn’t plot well on a bar graph.

However, the campaign “Girl Up” capitalizes on just that thing: the hopes of girls in the US. Kim Perry of Girl Up made the case that, once American girls are told about the struggles of girls in developing countries, they will be empowered to give, organize and tell the story. And what better way to do that than through their Girlifesto (I love a good replace-the-man-with-female-term word game and this is currently my favorite!) which has five points:

• Take 5 minutes to learn 5 facts
• Share the facts you learn with your network
• Share the Girlifesto
• Make a $5 donation
• Challenge 5 others through an event or fundraising effort

There were other the stories and commitments that gave me hope today:

Babalwa Mbono is a Jjunior trainer for mothers2mothers in South Africa. When asked what the one message was that she wanted to deliver to the bloggers in the room she said, “I have a message to all HIV positive women: let’s stand up and fight and be the example. Let us show that HIV may be there, but HIV must not destroy you. There is still life beyond HIV.”

Ethiopia reported a 61% decline in child mortality and a 51% reduction in malaria deaths. Rwanda has achieved a 48% reduction in infant mortality and a drop of 64% in maternal mortality. Rwanda is also implementing “gender responsive budgeting” in their healthcare programs.

I’d never heard of gender responsive budgeting – can we get some of that in America? How cool would that be? Today was an exciting day for women around the world – but for this American woman, it was a day to see global leaders coming together with the primary goal of making women and children the hinge upon which the global development door swings.

“By empowering women – we empower our societies.” – Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, MDG Summit | September 22, 2010

Last week I went to an NTEN event about how nonprofits can take advantage of Foursquare, a mobile app that is gaining about 100,000 new users a week.

At the event, Naveen Selvadurai, one of the founders of Foursquare explained how their invention was driven by a series of questions: “How can we get better at living in our cities?” And, “How can we turn life into a game?”

For uninitiated, here’s how Foursquare works: get to a location and “check in.” Once the app registers where you are, businesses and nonprofits nearby can alert you to special offers — like a discount for frozen yogurt. Like Meetup, it’s also a way to connect with friends in real time. Depending on the number of times you check in, you can earn “badges” or be anointed “Mayor” of that place – which can come with special privileges and prizes. The app is expected to exceed the 2 million mark this month.

Foursquare makes intuitive sense for a nonprofit that is site-specific – like a community center or a museum. But what happens if your nonprofit isn’t grounded in that way? Is Foursquare still useful?
The answer is yes.

I talked with Fenton’s VP of digital, John Gordon, who has been working on Foursquare to create a “nonprofit” category for check-in spots along with a “do gooder” badge that can be earned by donating or taking action for good causes. He had some good ideas for how nonprofits can make Foursquare work for them:

1. Think “action” not discount. Instead of offering freebies and coupons, partner with a local business or mark a symbolically relevant site (for example, the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, or the statue of Gandhi in New York’s Union Square) by encouraging people to take action, whether it’s to support union workers or make a donation to a water rights campaign in India.

2. Stake a place as your own: Fenton is currently working with Heal the Bay to revamp its web site and digital strategy so PLACE is at the forefront. We’re integrating Foursquare by making it possible for people who check in at their favorite beach to receive an alert from Heal the Bay on actions they can take to protect the places they love

3. Partner with a local business: We mentioned this above, but it’s worth emphasizing. In New York, many owners of popular food trucks that sell everything from crepes to tacos, not to mention celebrity chefs at hot spot restaurants, are all using Twitter and social media to attract customers. Nonprofits can turn this into a win-win by encouraging their supporters to frequent their partner business, while using the business spot as a brick-and-mortar place for like-minded people to congregate around a cause.

“Foursquare gives you access to a shared community of people who share an affinity for the same beach or other favorite spot that you do,” says John. “Nonprofits need to develop an identity around these places to take advantage of people’s natural behaviors and lead them take action.”

Is your nonprofit using Foursquare or thinking about it? We’d love to hear about it!

Pepperidge Farms, the makers of the “Fish” have a smart campaign out called “Fishfull Thinking.” It’s a site that gives tips to parents about how to raise a positive child.

Elements include:
1. Skill Quiz
2. Book Club
3. Guides to keeping kids active and optimistic
4. A parent survey
5. Q+A with experts
6. and more…

This is a wise campaign for the company. It allows parents (moms in particular) to see their brand as supportive to their parenting and not just a consumer transaction.

Moms will be loyal if you give her practical tips for doing the hardest job on the plant – raising happy, healthy kids.

Kudos to Pepperidge Farm for this campaign. Non-profits and companies to use this case study to do some authentic parent engagement planning.

Image courtesy of Ms. blog

Who is Feminist Hulk? He’s a mash-up between a muscle-bound, radioactive monster and a card-carrying feminist whose own personal superhero happens to be Judith Butler. And he’s become a cult favorite on Twitter (16,000+ followers) with his ALL-CAP reflections on modern-day patriarchy, gender and feminist intervention.

Feminist Hulk isn’t formally tied to any nonprofit. But he could be. If you’re a cause-driven organization struggling to generate social media buzz and build Twitter followers, one approach might be to adopt a colorful persona who can add some winking humor and pop culture cool to promote your issues.

Ms. Magazine’s Blog recently did an interview with Feminist Hulk and “J,” his “literary life-partner.” Here’s FM’s response about his origins:

IN BEGINNING, HULK SMASH FOR LOVE OF SMASH. LATER, HULK REALIZE CRAVING FOR SMASH CAUSED BY HYPERLINK HEGEMONIC FORCES WHICH DISCONNECTED HULK FROM SELF. HULK QUESTION SYSTEMS OF PRIVILEGE. SOON HULK SMASH WITH GREATER PURPOSE. CULTURAL MINDFULNESS GIVE HULK SUPERPOWERS OF ANTI-PATRIARCHAL SMASH!

This approach wouldn’t work for every nonprofit, of course. But given the personality-driven appeal of Twitter, it’s worth thinking outside the box. Are you a land conservation group? Maybe your Twitter persona could be an “Angry Beaver” whose habitat is threatened. Are you running a campaign targeting a bad corporate actor? Try on the voice of an imposter CEO or PR flak trying to spin his way out of the mess he’s created.

The key is to be true to the voice you’ve created. And tweet on topics that aren’t necessarily about your immediate issue. Part of the fun is applying your persona’s point of view to current events and other trending topics.
People like to follow Tweeters who have a distinct personality and thoughtful or playful take pm things. If you make them laugh, you’ll score big points and keep them coming back for more.

Thanks to Fenton’s social media wiz Hugh McMullen for the Hulk tip off!

CNN recently reported

Volunteer vacations are a way to integrate yourself into a community, give and receive while there, and deepen your understanding of something new while doing so.  These themes resonate with the reasons women support given causes and organizations, and also why they are loyal to certain brands.  Beyond the altruism and guilt cited by CNN, volunteer vacations are in many ways an ideal match for women vacationers.

The companies that run volunteer vacations – for example Charity Guide and Global Volunteers – recognize this.  Banners welcome visitors to the page with photos of women surrounded by other women. This is a natural fit.

CNN reports that men are increasingly interested in volunteer vacations, but expect women to continue dominating the volunteer vacations around the globe.  We agree.

If you have been on a volunteer vacation you can share your photos and video on iReport and you could be featured on CNN.

photo courtesy of  abroaderview.org

Indeed, the GAP joins Conde Nast to sponsor the current exhibit at the Met, “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity.”  The exhibit draws from the Brooklyn Museum collection of costumes and fashion.  “The exhibition reveals how the American woman initiated style revolutions that mirrored her social, political, and sexual emancipation” through an extensive display of costumes and clothes.

Corporations sponsoring art that has something to do with their product?  Not so innovative, you say.  What about then running an online auction of unique dresses made by the world’s best designers for the Met Gala and worn by a handful of A-list celebrities?  All proceeds going to the Met and the Costume Institute.  Innovative philanthropy, gorgeous gowns, and creative integrated marketing.  All focused on the most powerful force in purchasing for households, giving to charity and other non-profits, and forging a path for ourselves: WOMEN.

You can bid on dresses until 11:59 pm on May 31, 2010, view the gowns at the GAP at 680 Fifth Ave in New York City during the auction, and see the show at the Met until August 15, 2010.