A Radio Show with Purpose: Helping Non-Profit Charities Understand Social Media

On my radio show yesterday the entire show was planned to help non-profit organizations learn about using social media to drive donations. I approached the show drawing from my experience in the pet industry, but the content is relevant to any charitable organization. I was lucky to have two great guests from the pet community to provide examples and provide a model for a non-profit organization or individual seeking to maximize fund raising efforts. My guests were Kim Smith from The PETCO Foundation and Diane Silver, a popular pet blogger of To Dog With Love fame. Diane wrote about her appearance on her blog today. Diane is also the voice behind @CosmoHavanese on Twitter. Cosmo is Diane's totally awesome Havanese dog, who is a pro at agility, and Tweeting too, it would seem ;-)
 

The show turned out to be an in-depth discussion on the role of social media to help non-profit charitable organizations with raising money for causes and events. I was pretty psyched about it because organizations large or small, to individuals attempting to raise money for their favorite cause will benefit from listening to this show.

I'm hardly an expert on the subject matter, but I feel my experience working with some non-profit groups is there is often a disconnect from taking an idea to effectively activate their base to reach new potential donors. I tried to approach the show using my experience with fund-raising in the pet community over the past 14 years.

While doing research for the show, I decided to include tips from Mashable.com and ITTY.BIZ.com about social media fund-raising- both of which are good resources on the topic.

There were also some great fund-raising suggestions about offering donors premium incentives, working with retailers, planning TweetUps and using videos to activate the base of supporters. The show also includes tangible examples of how to motivate volunteers and activate your base with a robust social media campaign.
 

I felt both guests did a great job providing insights of how to integrate social media sites such as Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube, as well as websites and blogs into marketing efforts. In their own words, both Kim and Diane shared real examples of how they use social media for success in fund-raising. In short, the show is packed with examples and ideas that will be helpful for charitable organizations of any size. 

If you know someone involved in fund-raising for any kind of organization, tell them to check out the show online. Hopefully they will learn how to combine online and offline marketing, social media marketing, blogging, and websites to engage their users. 

This episode is available to be heard in archive on demand anytime at BlogTalkRadio- Palm Springs Savant  It is also available as a podcast on iTunes.

One of my guests:

Me with Diane (right) and Cosmo (front center). Natalie is (back center)

  

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Diane Silver is the author of the blog To Dog With Love and the voice behind @CosmoHavanese on Twitter. I met Diane at the Bark World Expo in Atlanta back in August (see photo above). She has spent the past 25 years working in public relations and corporate communications and held senior management positions at several major corporations. She is also a former sportswriter for Ann Arbor News and Ypsilanti Press. Today she is active with dog agility and supports numerous animal related charities. She is a regular contributor to The Anipal Times and is active with PawPawty fund-raising efforts online along with her trans-Atlantic friend @FrugalDougal, founder of PawPawty.com 

Kim Smith has over 13 years experience in web development and is Senior Web Manager for The PETCO Foundation. She is responsible for the organization’s website, social media and email newsletters and is a regular contributor to The PETCO Scoop blog. Ms Smith is a working board member for Pit Bull Rescue San Diego, responsible for branding and web based marketing including an online dog sponsorship program and social media interactions. She cites her passion for animals and a penchant for animal welfare as a driver for her web expertise.

To listen to other episodes of The Palm Springs Savant & Co radio show in archives: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/palm-springs-savant 
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