March 2001

Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Francisco and the Peninsula (BBBS) is a classic small to mid-size non-profit with a vital community mission of youth mentoring. They made the leap into the Internet in 1997 with the hope that it could help them inform people about their mission, raise money and find volunteers. It seemed like the Internet was tailor made for their needs. In the midst of their enthusiasm, they had to wrestle with limited staff to devote to their Internet work, a nascent Internet industry, and some very creative strategies for fundraising - the challenge that thousands of nonprofits have faced these past three years. I talked with Jonathan Stein, BBBS's Development Associate and Information Technology Coordinator to learn about the impact that Internet technology has had on this nonprofit agency. - Michael Stein.

Michael Stein: Jonathan, start us off with a brief description of what BBBS does in the greater Bay Area.

Jonathan Stein: Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Francisco and the Peninsula works to make a positive difference in the lives of children by promoting their self-esteem, expanding their awareness of life's opportunities, and providing them with guidance and support through long-term, one-to-one mentorships with caring adult volunteers. Every week, more than 300 men and women of San Francisco and the Peninsula share their lives with their Little Brothers and Sisters. They may go to the beach, see a movie, or throw a frisbee around at the park. They talk about life, school and family. They learn about each other, themselves, and what it means to be a friend. We served a total of 460 boys and girls last year and more than half of the matches are over one year long. The average match is 2-1/2 years.

Michael: How long has BBBS been using the Internet, what has it used the Internet for, and what has its impact been on the agency?

Jonathan Stein: We started out on the Internet through a program with CitySearch in early 1997, where they hosted a few Web pages that profiled us. CitySearch was one the first portals on the Web that covered citywide events, news and also profiled nonprofits, which was how we got listed. That program wasn't flexible enough, so we built our own first Web site in mid-1998 which was basically a brochure and then we made our first major upgrades in Spring 1999 when I came on board. Our goal was to extend our reach to potential volunteers, funders, and people in our community. Informing people about BBBS, raising money, and seeking out new volunteers were the key factors in establishing this Internet presence and it's had a dramatic impact on our agency. Simply by pointing people in the direction of our Web site, we've been able to inform and educate thousands of people about the opportunities and services that we provide. By allowing individuals to immediately donate to BBBS online, and reaching a broader audience, we have acquired many new donors. Between August 2000 and February 2001, we raised $19,562 through various online fundraising efforts. Finally, by providing a volunteer form online, we have been able to reach out to a much greater number of possible mentors. Everyone at BBBS has been incredibly pleased by these outcomes.

Michael: How have you measured outcome?

Jonathan: We've always gotten direct feedback from volunteers and others that the Web site has been useful in their effort to learn about us. Also, we've used the access logs from our Internet provider which shows how many visitors we're getting. We tend to get about 1,000 visitors to our site every month, with about 3,000 pages viewed. It's actually been difficult to obtain this data accurately. We've wanted to buy a commercial software program to analyze the logs, but it's too expensive. I really wish we had a way - and the time - to analyze our access logs accurately. As for finding volunteers via our Web site, we got 700 volunteer forms submitted last year, of which approximately 50% come in for an orientation, and of those about 70% apply and are accepted into the program. So we have a pretty tangible sense of value and impact.

Michael: Let's turn to online fundraising, something that a lot of nonprofits have struggled with on the Internet these past few years. Can you describe your efforts?

Jonathan: We tried it all! We tried an online shopping mall with iGive. We set up a direct credit card collection system with Entango. And we even tried a giving incentives program with Netcentives.

Michael: Take us through each program. You worked with Entango.com for online secure server credit card transactions. Describe that effort and its impact.

Jonathan: Using Entango.com to handle our online credit card transactions was critical for us in being able to use our Web site to collect donations. Their staff has been incredibly responsive to our needs. Their service allows us to track online donations in real-time from any Web browser, and export this data to Microsoft Excel. They make the whole process very simple for us. The cost to us to use their service was a 5% fee of every contribution, so if someone donated $100, we got $95. Having Entango was not a guarantee of increased donations, just a very efficient tool for collecting donations. In our case it was not until we began using the Netcentives promotion that our online donations truly took off.

Michael: Netcentives helped you encourage people to donate and also helped you reach out to new donors.

Jonathan: Netcentives.com offers an "online currency" called ClickMiles, that rewards people for accomplishing online transactions. ClickMiles can be used to purchase products at hundreds of participating e-commerce Web sites, or they can be turned into frequent flyer miles at most major airlines. In the case of nonprofits, ClickMiles are used as an incentive to encourage people to make a donation or to make a larger donation. For a donor on the Web, if they donate at a higher level, they get more ClickMiles. If they donate $50 then they receive 100 bonus ClickMiles, donate $100 and get 500 ClickMiles, donate $1,000 and get 10,000 ClickMiles. A straightforward incentive that really worked. The nonprofit pays a fee to Netcentives for each ClickMile they reward the donor with. Working with Netcentives, we created a promotional system (i.e. how many ClickMiles does a donor receive per dollar donated) which we felt comfortable with, and within six months, we had netted $10,000 in contributions. These were new funds that we would never have obtained except via the Netcentives campaign. Add to this the number of new donors we were able to bring to our support base, it is clear to us that partnering with Netcentives was the right choice for our agency. We've continued our partnership with Netcentives, although they are no longer offering double the ClickMile awards.

Michael: But it also sounds like the key to the Netcentives program is their ability to help you reach out to new donors.

Jonathan: Yes, Netcentives has this huge network of people that they use to promote campaigns like ours. It has over a million members and they do this one-time promotional email, plus we're linked to their Web site. That was a big factor in our success and it had a huge impact.

Michael: You worked with iGive.com for online fundraising as part of their charity mall service. I hear about these efforts all the time. What was your experience?

Jonathan: Our work with iGive.com was not as successful as we'd hoped. Whether it's an issue specific to BBBS or a symptom of a larger problem inherent in the online charity mall model, I can't say for sure. I believe there were definitely problems in the "shopping" process that made it a chore for the donor. For example, requiring the donor to email her online receipt to iGive.com in order for the nonprofit to receive its money was problematic. To my knowledge, this step has now been eliminated. However, despite having links to iGive.com on almost every page of our Web site for over six months, we have yet to make more than $500 through the partnership.

Michael: It's not an uncommon fate. Charity malls usually pay off when they're part of a targeted fundraising strategy.

Jonathan: Yes, one possible strategy we considered but did not apply was to launch a campaign with current donors to raise a specific amount of money through the iGive.com program. In this way, we would make people aware of the partnership, and familiarize them with the "shopping" process. If an organization can get people "hooked" and accustomed to going through this process each time they shop online, I believe this could be a very powerful fundraising tool.

Michael: Let's turn towards email and email newsletters. You worked with an Application Service Provider called Topica.com to help you distribute your email newsletters. Was that a successful effort?

Jonathan: By working with Topica.com, we created an email newsletter to stay in touch with our supporters, allowing us to regularly push traffic towards our Web site as reader clicked on links in the newsletter. We used a very simple, text-based and link-filled format, and have seen a dramatic increase in site traffic with each issue released. One concern with Topica.com - and other listserv service providers - is the presence of advertising in each newsletter that is sent out. Topica.com currently places a few lines of text about its service at the bottom of each message and there are rumors that they will soon be adding third-party ads. Some services offer an option to remove ads and endorsements for a monthly fee. So even though we're concerned about these issues, we've been pleased with Topica.com.

Michael: You use your Web site to do surveys of your community on whether your services are meeting people's needs. How did you develop that tool and what was its impact?

Jonathan: We set up a survey tool on our Web site by installing CGI code on our Web server. I'd say that the tool was useful but not a great success. This was not due to the survey technology, but rather the way in which the final product was presented and the lack of motivation on the user's part to participate. If we could do this over, or I was advising other nonprofits, I would suggest concentrating on how to motivate individuals to participate. Using the lure of a drawing for a $50 gift certificate, BBBS was only able to attract a small number of people. Of course, with greater resources, a larger agency might be able to offer a free gift for each participant, and achieve much better results.

Michael: At one point you had a Discussion Forum on your Web site, which you no longer use. What happened to it?

Jonathan: We wanted a message board on our Web site so our volunteers could interact with each other. We actually installed a program on our Web server to do this. The code and some set-up assistance were generously donated by a friend of a board member. I think it was a good idea in concept, but could have been more successfully executed. Here's a place where the technology failed us. We set up a system with a single thread of discussion, which made it difficult for our volunteers to interact. We think it would have made a big difference if we had set up a multi-thread message board, so people could have multiple discussions. We probably should have invested more money in the more advanced system.

Michael: At the risk of opening a can of worms, what can you tell us about your experiences with Web hosting companies and Internet Service Providers? To what extent have those relationships impacted your effectiveness online?

Jonathan: We've had a lot of problems working with ISPs, which we hear is not that uncommon. During the launch of our Netcentives program, the Web server where we were hosted crashed because they couldn't handle the traffic. It was our ISP's fault that they couldn't handle traffic surges. Over the years we've learned what questions to ask and what to look out for. And we're now shopping for another ISP because of issues. It's been a good learning experience that you get what you pay for.

Michael: Overall, how do you think that your agency has handled Internet development from the point of view of staffing, budget and decision-making? What kinds of lessons did your organization learn?

Jonathan: Determining how much money to budget for Internet development has been a complex challenge for us. It's difficult to determine how much time and money is needed for a project that is usually fairly undefined, and for which there is little historical reference. It's also overwhelming to research the many online services available to nonprofits. I would recommend that an organization delegate someone to research the various services, but more importantly manage the entire process. Relying on outside help to create specific components of the plan is fine, but it's important to have someone internally who can manage the entire operation to streamline priorities and execution. Through this entire process of Internet development, we learned that no one organization can possibly use all of the online services available. A nonprofit should select a limited number of proven components and concentrate efforts on making each one work. It's easy to become seduced by all the bells and whistles that one can have on a Web site. By choosing a few useful tools, and keeping as much of the responsibility in-house as possible, a nonprofit can make a big impact by integrating the Internet into its operations and programs.