Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing series, we invite a nonprofit scholar, student, or professional to highlight current research reports or studies and discuss how they can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

“The impact of new technologies is invariably misjudged because we measure the future with yardsticks from the past.” - Stephen Baker, a technology journalist in a recent NY Times Blog.

Last year I wrote a Research Friday blog post that considered the impact of civic engagement on the economy. I discussed research that found a correlation between civic engagement and the unemployment rate. Although the findings were not conclusive, in states where civic engagement did not decline, employment rates were more resilient and stable.

The term …

The year is 2008. Overnight, banks and financial institutions are in crisis, the stock market plunges, interest rates and housing prices drop, corporate sales and profits dip, employment lines grow, funds everywhere dry up. Nonprofits, the fifth largest industry in Arizona, historically the recipient of a most generous donor base, now wear the burden of the downturn in the national economy.

The number of nonprofit agencies that succumbed to the recession is not the topic of this essay. Suffice to say, that most survived, some due to good luck, others to large contributions that came their way in the early months. As the funding pot boiled down, nonprofit managers tightened our belts. Responsibilities fell to the board of directors and executive directors to do something to save their organizations.

Executive directors, along with their bookkeepers, heard the clock ticking and felt the impact first. Staff! How do we meet our biggest expense, payroll, with the next fiscal quarter looming? Clients! How do we serve our needy client base: vulnerable individuals, “our” families and “our kids?” At that point in time, keeping ourselves employed wasn’t even a thought.

With no time to spare and with no colleagues with whom to collaborate (we were all too busy), executive directors had to act. Now, holed up our offices, we had to reach into our inner strengths. Each had to look to our…

Last month, CompassPoint, in conjunction with the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, released a report revealing some unfortunate statistics which provide real insight into the fundraising industry. Through raw data collected from more than 2,700 nonprofit and development professionals from across the country and representing a cross-section of organizational structures, Underdeveloped illustrates the oftentimes challenging career tract of fundraising, particularly within smaller nonprofits. The report explains how frustrations within a development position can commonly lead to myriad hurdles for an entire organization and offers tangible advice on how the sector as a whole can dramatically reshape the field of fundraising.

It’s no secret that fund development is tough work. With limited financial resources and human capital to dedicate toward annual funds, campaigns or special events, nonprofit organizations typically find themselves stuck in a rut; a rut that seldom generates new or additional funds. Moreover, the apathetic and even sometimes fearful attitudes toward fundraising among staff and board members can lead to a philanthropic dead-end. For fundraisers who find themselves…

With charity events, it all comes down to public awareness. Charity isn’t something that you “sell” but something that you spread to other likeminded individuals. Working in the internet marketing field I primarily work with selling ad space, improving company branding and exposure. However, when I had the unique opportunity to work with a local company on marketing a charity event; it was an enjoyable yet different experience.

The two companies we worked with were A Family Storage, which is a self-storage company, and Cool Box Portable Storage, which is a mobile storage company similar to PODS. Any donations that were dropped off at A Family Storage would then be moved in a Cool Box container up to Hurricane Sandy relief centers.

To market our event online, we decided to use the power of social media to spread awareness of our charity event, specifically Facebook. Facebook gives us a unique approach to targeting different demographics than you would be able to achieve with traditional internet advertising platforms such as Google Adwords or MSN Adcenter. Although we could target different demographics, we still paid the traditional per click basis that Adwords or Adcenter uses.

After deciding to use social media, we set up a campaign with a relatively small budget to test what kind of interaction we would receive from our ad. We first set up our campaign to geo-target our location which was specifically Tucson, based on the companies…

Whatever your nonprofit experience level and situation, you probably have to keep track of donors and other key constituents. Many of you have probably relied on multiple Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and maybe a Microsoft Access database at some point in your professional life. But, as an organization’s needs grow, this kind of system becomes burdensome and labor-intensive. Contacts begin to slip through the cracks, and it becomes harder and harder to juggle all of the data.

The solution to this dilemma is a customer relations management (CRM) system (sometimes called a donor management system in the nonprofit arena). There are dozens of CRMs out there that cater specifically to nonprofit needs. A great resource for finding your best fit is NTEN’s Consumer’s Guide to Donor Management Software.

One resource you will inevitably hear about while researching CRMs is Salesforce. My purpose here is not to try to “sell” this product, nor is it to discourage people from implementing Salesforce in their organizations. Rather, my primary motive with this blog post is to share a bit about the ASU Lodestar Center’s recent experience in implementing Salesforce as a CRM solution. My hope is that I can provide insight and experience that will be helpful for other nonprofits who currently use, or are thinking of implementing, Salesforce as their primary…