We're pleased to have been invited to be a media partner at this AIME event, taking place on 27th May in London. I will be filming video interviews with some of the speakers, and speaking in a panel debate about exploiting interactive technology on a budget.
A perfect topic for a conference! We've recently interviewed the CEOs and fundraising heads of a number of established charities, and they all tell us that it's a competitive market out there. Everyone is facing new fundraising challenges, as the recession cuts into revenues and donors become better-informed and more demanding. The explosion in new interactive technologies offers huge potential in making it easier and cheaper to reach out to and engage donors. But there's a lot of 'new stuff' out there, and getting to grips with it all is challenging.
The need to do it cheaply is something I happen to feel pretty strongly about, too. As the Charity Times recently reported, small charities are particularly feeling the impact of the recession - with higher overhead, fewer income streams and weaker brand recognition, that's not surprising. Our interviewees also tell us that donors expect just as much of small charities as of big ones, in terms of professionalism in their marketing and outreach. We therefore find many charities still paying relatively large sums of money to IT suppliers to build and maintain websites, payment systems, internal IT systems, and so on.
But the fact is that you can now run a highly professional and effective online operation - fundraising and all aspects of marketing - for next to nothing. Cheap or free cloud-based services such as JustGiving, YouTube, Wordpress, Facebook, Twitter, Ning, VerticalResponse and Google Apps are your friend: all you need is a couple of PCs and a decent Internet connection. And such services are usually far better than the custom-built alternatives - with more features, a faster rate of improvement, better performance, tighter security.
So if you're a small charity, paying for servers, hosting, software and custom-built systems is increasingly looking like a waste of donors' money. Wiser by far to put your slim resources into what really differentiates you: understanding your audience, building a compelling message, creative campaigning. And then enlisting a couple of smart teenagers to show you how to put the new tools to work.
Here's some information about the conference, as supplied by AIME. I hope to see you there!
Empowering the Charitable Sector with Interactive Technology, Hilton London Paddington Hotel, 27th May 2010
Less than two weeks remain until the most innovative organisations and individuals developing interactive tech solutions for charities, gather in London for AIME's full day of K&N Seminars, aimed at exploring how the third sector can successfully harness the power of social media and mobile technology.
Empowering the Charitable Sector with Interactive Technology, to be held at the Hilton London Paddington Hotel from 9am on 27th May, helps charities learn how to strategically plan and execute digital outreach campaigns designed to increase public engagement and drive donations using a range of new media platforms.
The agenda is cross-industry and cross-platform, combining strategic views, executive insights and case studies from network operators, mobile aggregators, broadcasters, marketing agencies and major charitable organisations, that have run successful interactive fundraising and awareness raising campaigns in the UK and US. All our speakers will be there to share their ideas, experiences and personal passions in helping charities to maximise their return from interactive technology. No one is there to just pitch their business or company and the agenda has been meticulously researched and structured to provide the most valuable insights into the various value chains that create interactive services across web, mobile, broadcast, and social media platforms.
Hear from Comic Relief and Sport Relief, World Society for the Protection of Animals, the Join 1Goal Organisation, Mobile Giving Foundation, Cause2Connect, Kids' Company and Just Giving, along with their technology solution providers like Exact Target, Mobile Interactive Technology, Open Market, BT Agile Media, Incentivated and WIN, will share experiences and demonstrate the value of these platforms and how they have helped Save the Children, Shelter, Help for Heroes, DEC and others improve their bottom line.
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