npMarketing Blog

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Labels: The International Rescue Committee

posted by Marc @ 3:44 PM Links to this post 

NetHope Summit 2007

International Rescue Committee CTO David Goodman and IT Director Chad Sutton are down in Panama for the NetHope Summit and they are blogging!

Stay tuned here all day long.

Labels: technology, The International Rescue Committee

posted by Marc @ 4:06 PM Links to this post 

So You Want to Work In Non-profit Land?

I've had many a conversation lately with some super smart people who want to make the jump from for-profit into non-profit land. Sometimes they are burned out, and sometimes they are just bored. Either way, here's my own personal guide to making the jump. When I made the jump back in 2001 - it was quite unusual for non-profits to be hiring marketers - today things have changed dramatically.

This post is similar to my lessons learned posts from when I left LLS.

The Top 10 Things to Know When Considering a Non-Profit Marketing Job

10. The speed is different, get ready to slow down.

9. The politics look different, but AREN'T.

8. Sometimes marketing is in the communications department, and sometimes it is in the revenue department. The difference is in how you will be measured and judged a success. I personally believe that marketing should not be in revenue.

7. The pay isn't as good (but who cares - you get to make a difference in the world).

6. Sometimes, it's really hard to execute ideas (even really good ones).

5. Chances are you will be one of the only people who actually understands marketing.

4. When interviewing find out if the CEO and board is vested in marketing's success and that he/she understands the value of brand as it relates to the overall success of the organization.

3. No matter what "level" you come in at (SVP, VP, Director or lower), if you execute well, you'll do well. Execution at non-profits is where it's at... strategy is great (and necessary, believe me), but getting things done is how to become a non-profit marketeering rock-star.

2. It's GOOD to bring some for-profit thinking and process to a non-profit - but don't expect that everyone will be willing to play along right away.

1. You should expect to have to continually remind and educate your co-workers about the value and reason for marketing.

posted by Marc @ 10:42 AM Links to this post 

IRC Recruitment Video

We're thinking of doing a recruitment video - something that showcases our amazing culture and people... we're still brainstorming and are not sure if this is the right direction:


Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

Or something more like this:

Labels: The International Rescue Committee

posted by Marc @ 10:19 AM Links to this post 

It's Blog Action Day (better late than never I always say)

posted by Marc @ 1:05 PM Links to this post 

A Tiny Bit More About Youtube

Here's a snap shot of referral traffic from youtube to our site. Notice the bump (youtube program went live) and the falloff.

Also notice (click the image to make it bigger) the conversion stats to our petition. Interesting that conversion is so much higher from /watch than from our profile. I need to take a closer look to see why - it's probably obvious!

Labels: Social Networking, The International Rescue Committee

posted by Marc @ 10:20 AM Links to this post 

YouTube Nonprofit Program - our experiences

Rick Christ from NPAdvisors e-mailed me to see if I had anything to share regarding our recent experience with the Youtube nonprofit program.

Here's what I told him:
We saw a tremendous jump in views to all of our videos - the highest we had ever had was 30,000 - the highest video now is more than 200,000. That's a lot of people watching an IRC produced video!

As predicted, there was very, very little donation or click through traffic from youtube, even following the launch. What little was traceable via clicks wasn't much.

We had been pushing our videos quite a bit as of late, so this served to jump start our efforts - we certainly do believe that Youtube (and other sites like it) are a great way to promote the work and issues that we're focused on - even if returns are hard or impossible to measure.

We had a huge increase in comments - something like 800 plus - and most of them either ignorant, stupid or just spam. We decided to remove only the worst offenders but may have to take additional action in the future which of course creates more staff time to handle it. It's not too bad right now, but we're keeping an eye on it. We don't want to shut off comments.

While you are here.. watch one of our vids:

Labels: Social Networking

posted by Marc @ 8:30 AM Links to this post 

Keepin On, Keepin On

So busy here my head hurts!

I sent out an advocacy e-mail yesterday to about 55,000 people. 2 noteworthy things happened.

First, we cross promoted the GuluWalk to our advocacy list. It seemed/felt very odd promoting another organization's fundraising event and still does a little bit. That said, I used GuluWalk's online fundraising tools to create a TeamIRC (US, Canada and International) to try to keep our brand growing. We've had quite a response, signing up about 25 people so far - and raising a few bucks to boot. I've noticed organizations like Worldvision and Save the Children cross promote different advocacy events before, and had always wanted to try it. It feels good to represent a brand that is willing to promote it's partnerships.

Secondly, we've been working closely with a company called Collactive. In the same advocacy e-mail we included this copy:

TAKE ACTION NOW
The United States has failed in its pledge to provide refuge to thousands of extremely vulnerable Iraqi civilians, including those who worked for Americans in Iraq and whose lives are at grave risk as a result.

Of 4 million uprooted Iraqi civilians in desperate need of help, only a paltry 1,608 refugees were admitted into the United States this year.

Read Anna Husarska's LATimes op-ed and click Act Now! to email it to the U.S. Government.

When users clicked on "Act Now!" they were taken to a Collactive generated interface which allowed them to forward the story to the U.S. Government. Because Collactive's system uses the actual site (LATimes in this case), our story was suddenly #2 on the most emailed stories. A day later (i.e. right now - we're #1). How cool is that?

Yes, the traffic is not to our site - and yes - the latimes article doesn't have a link to our site (but does list our URL) so results are impossible to track. But that said - an important mission story went from invisible, to very visible by simply utilizing our advocacy email list.

Click the pics below to get a full screen view.

Labels: advocacy, The International Rescue Committee

posted by Marc @ 9:16 AM Links to this post