In late February Mashable's Melissa Jun Rowley published an article titled 10 Tips for Successful Twitter Fundraising. I was interested to see what Twitter-specific tactics might surface. But when I read the list, it seemed to me that every one of them was something that any non-profit fundraising professional should be doing anyway – and not just on Twitter.
Examples of the non-Twitter-specific advice include
- Keep Track of Developing Relationships
- Recognize Volunteers and Donors
and
- State Your Purpose and Your Request Clearly
These are certainly critical components to successful fundraising – but they are not at all specific to Twitter.
In the comments to the post Laurie Pringle voiced this exact point, saying:
This is basic fundraising 101. Very little of this is specific to Twitter - it's basic fundraising, sales, marketing and relationship building skills (and some might say just plain old good manners)...Every major non profit conference I go to, most of the philanthropy and charity websites, are full of articles, papers and educational offerings on just this topic – and have been for some time.
I agree. So my questions are
Are some of these "10 Tips" actually more true on Twitter than in any other fundraising channel?
and
Are there other tips that you can think of that really do apply more to Twitter than to any other channel?
Leave a comment. Or write a reply on Twitter: @alumnifutures.
