DMI's Community Weekend - Wine Edition!

TGIF! You know what sounds good right now? A nice glass of wine! If you agree, then I have a wonderful event for you.

Surf City Vintners in Santa Cruz is hosting a Food & Wine Faire this Saturday (July 30th) from 5:30pm-9:00pm. The event benefits the Second Harvest Food Bank - Santa Cruz County and will help "fund 6,000 healthy meals for kids in Santa Cruz County."

Food and wine will be sold by each vendor so there is no entry fee and "in the interest of sustainable practices, please bring your own plates, utensils and wine glasses." There will also be live music!

So bring your friends and some wine glasses and enjoy this "urban picnic!"

Happy weekend everyone!

--L

Direct Mail Blunders

I can't believe July is almost over. Time sure flies when you're having fun!

I was browsing through Deliver Magazine and came across an article titled When Direct Mail Goes Wrong. It was a humorous take on direct mail mistakes that were submitted by marketers from around the world.

My favorite one was:

Wrong list was used and one personalization (my favorite) was “Dear Mrs. Mother Superior.” The magazine was not all that pleased.

We can laugh about it after the fact but we all know what a nightmare it is when a direct marketing vendor makes a data mistake.

DMI takes data very seriously (the word data is in our name after all!). We know the importance of having clean data and we go through proper quality control steps to ensure deliverability and maximize ROI.

For more information visit our Data Hygiene Solutions or contact me!

--L

DMI's Community Weekend - Community Celebration Edition!

Happy Friday! I really love the summer time and all the fun summer activities like the 3rd Annual Portera Common Community Celebration!

This is a great event that benefits not only 1 but 4 local non profits like the Second Harvest Food Bank!

The celebration is Wednesday 07/27/11 and is from 6pm-8:30pm at the Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell. There will be a Michael Jackson tribute band performing along with great food and drinks courtesy of Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery.

Admission is easy! All you need to bring are the following items:

1. "A nutritious, non-perishable food item (no glass containers) for Second Harvest"
2. "$5 or more (cash or check) to go directly to the Community Mammography Access Program at CHP"
3. "An item of clean, gently used career clothing or shoes for women or men for the Career Closet"
4. "School supplies for Sacred Heart"
5. "A friend, co-worker, neighbor or family member to enjoy this FUN event and contribute to the charities listed above"

Best of all, 100% of the proceeds benefit the charities listed!

For any additional information check out the links above or go directly to the event website: http://sites.google.com/site/porteraccc/

Have a wonderful weekend!

--L

Is Social Fundraising Right For Me?

I know I've mentioned social media in various posts throughout this blog but I believe this is an emerging channel in fundraising.

I listened to a podcast today from The Chronicle of Philanthropy that interviewed 2 people who have been actively using social media to fundraise.

The first person is Tracy Viselli who is "a community manager at Action Alexandria, [and] is working with a group of small, local nonprofits in Alexandria, Va., to build successful online fund-raising campaigns." The second person is Aaron Steinberg who is "the social media manager at SAR Academy, in Bronx, N.Y." His school is "participating in an online fund-raising contest designed to help it attract at least 1,000 online donors."

They raised several interesting points from their experiences that I think every organization who is thinking of launching social media campaigns need to consider:

• For Aaron, prior to beginning the school's contest, he had to evaluate if social media marketing was appropriate for his organization. He wasn't sure how responsive parents of the Academy would be. All organizations need to discuss this internally. What does social media mean to our organization and to our supporters? Wanting to be "social" and being "social" are 2 very different things.

•  For Tracy, her main takeaway was the importance of training. You must train the staff and everyone in the organization how to use social media. And not only how to use the platforms like Facebook or Twitter, but to be able to understand how to capitalize the impact. Another component is to be able to train your donors and potential donors. Both Tracy and Aaron urge people to hold events that incorporate a social media element. Have laptops, people, and literature available on how to participate in the social media campaign.

• Both agree that experimentation is key. Try different approaches. Aaron was able to have a local company match donations and turned it into a contest to see how many donors and dollars they could bring in. Tracy had various local non profits participate in an online giving challenge. They wanted to see which non profit would bring in the most online donations and had a leader board posted on their website. Because this is a new way of fundraising, you have to be able to test different approaches and find out what works for your organization.

Has your organization tried a social media campaign? If so, what were some of your takeaways?

--L

DMI's Community Weekend - Dog Edition!

Happy Friday!

As many of you know, I love my dog like he was my own child so I love finding dog friendly events.

This Saturday (July 16th) is the Niles Dog Show at Niles Community Park in Fremont. The event will run from 9am-3pm and will feature a dog adoption parade! There will be lots of other events such as a dog costume contest, most unusual dog mix competition, best in show, and much more.

Say hi to Jacoby!

Proceeds from this event will benefit the Ohlone Humane Society Spay Neuter program and the Niles Main Street Association. So take your dogs to this fun event and if you don't have a dog but always wanted one, this would be a great opportunity to adopt one!

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

--L