Notes From A London Fundraising Conference #IoFNC

I've been at the Institute of Fundraising National Convention all this week. Interestingly, people have moved away from the trend of making notes on iPads and are back to pen and paper.

Me? I take my notes on Twitter and this blog...so here they are:

Website Donation Optimisation
You read bits and pieces about improving donation forms but Beate Sorum and Ida Aalen put it all together nice and succinctly. And they were realists - usually when you see people presenting on digital they imply that simply doing digital stuff drives donations. But the #NorseGoddessesOfFundraising know that it's still real, human emotion that makes people want to click your donation button.

Anyway, the main points:
Be mobile friendly, get rid of unnecessary extras, role-play your form as if it's a conversation, "Nobody comes to look at your homepage", don't ask for something unless you absolutely need it.

Too Much Fundraising Advice Is Too Vague
You know what sessions I like? When fundraisers present what they actually did and show you actual results - good or bad.

JustGiving's Care Button
God, I hope they've tested this before they've rolled it out to every single charity. JustGiving are usually so good (although...sales pitch...Sponsor.ie is so much cheaper) but to me this new Care button seems like the only thing it's going to do for charities and donors is reduce donations. Will be interesting to track what it does for my lovely clients.

Ireland Needs More Pro-Fundraising Marketing
As someone suggested to me, Ireland needs a week long pro-fundraiser/pro-charity week. A mix between GoodCharity.ie, #ProudFundraiser and Charity Defense Council's ads.

Good Seminars
Really enjoyed seminars from...
Matthew Sherrington: "E-mail subject lines should always have a verb".
Adrian Salmon: Must download his slides and have a closer look at the 'blank post-it' idea.
Mark Phillips: Always entertaining.

That's it for another year...