CNM Consultant Kim Carpenter Drake has put together a fantastic post on how to encourage supporters to make a difference:

Seamless Living
By Kim Carpenter Drake
www.goaldrivenphilanthropy.com

Stop and consider for a moment one simple question: what do our decisions say about us?

Not the big decisions, just the simple ones – such as what to have for dinner or whether to throw the can from that diet Coke you just finished into the wastebasket next to your desk or carry it to the recycling bin in the kitchen. No, this is not to make you feel guilty if you did not recycle that can. It also is not a condemnation of your diet if the dinner is a quick trip through the drive-thru (complete with a licensed Happy Meal toy, if you are my family) or if it comes from your share of the local farming cooperative.

My only point is to say that our lives are becoming increasingly “seamless” – without borders that distinguish work from play, philanthropy from shopping, and we from the world around us. As nonprofit leaders, this can be both liberating and exhausting. We can develop complex cause marketing plans wherein our cause benefits when a consumer buys the brand of choice at the store. We can encourage responsible behavior by bringing recycling bins and paper pickup campaigns to area businesses. We can even empower our supporters to change the standard practices of government or business through their actions.

Whether a volunteer or NPO staff, we contribute to the seamless nature of living today. This makes it important that we give our supporters good, solid, easy to understand information about our causes and what we need from them. They do listen and advocate to encourage others to listen as well. In addition to your fundraising appeals, do you empower your supporters to make this type of difference in the community?

Add a simple call to action to your Web site, your newsletter or your next correspondence. Model this behavior for others in the workplace and in your personal life – create a buzz for organics, recycling, literacy or whatever speaks to you. Fundraising isn’t just about writing a check anymore, it appears. It can be incorporated “seamlessly” into our daily lives with the right guidance.