Harman Interactive LLC » Harman Interactive News & Perspective

Support Nonprofit Software Research

betsyh — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:36:49 +0000

For people who work at nonprofit organizations, staying current with the latest software and various technology tools available to help them do their work more efficiently can be difficult. It is also tough to sort through sales pitches and gather reliable unbiased data. Idealware is a great organization that has made great strides in the last few years to help organizations understand what is out there and the factors that should be used to make smart decisions in this arena.

I contributed to their article about selecting email tools and I advertised in their excellent guide to selecting donor management software.

Idealware has recently announced a research fund to help them do more of the great work they do which means so much to the nonprofit sector. Get all the details here and join me in donating to this worthy effort before year-end.

From a D to a B+

betsyh — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:20:07 +0000

Websitegrader is a great tool to measure the marketing effectiveness of your website. It provides a score that measures things like website traffic, search engine optimization, social popularity and the technical aspects of the site. It even looks at whether your site is written in techno speak and can only be understood by those with masters degree or if it is written to appeal to a broader audience such as those with a college or high school education. You can also put in the URLs of your competition to see if your site gets a better grade than theirs.

Before I relaunched my site, my grade was 58/100 which is basically a D. Now my site gets a B+ – 89/100. Website grader provides some advice on how to make the score even higher so I’m going to work on that.

What is the score for your website? Check it out at websitegrader.com.

Year-End Success with Harman Interactive

betsyh — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:24:39 +0000

Many nonprofit organizations see a significant portion of their annual revenue come in at the end of the year. Harman Interactive can help you maximize your year-end results with effective integrated email, direct mail, and social media strategies.

Whether you need hands-on help with writing your year-end appeals, help with strategy or segmentation, or someone to facilitate a planning session or provide some coaching for your staff, Harman Interactive can help.

My Visit to the 9th Ward

betsyh — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 19:06:00 +0000

This blog normally very closely sticks to the subject of e-mail marketing and online fundraising best practices. Today I’m going to stray from that to share a few personal thoughts.

Last week I was in New Orleans for the Public Radio Marketing and Development Conference. It was a wonderful conference and I’ll share some links and thoughts from some of the sessions in future blog postings. I was very pleased that we went to New Orleans for the conference. Providing tourism is a great way to help the city and I was happy to provide extra tips to the cabbies and bartenders throughout the week. I ate some incredible food, drank the spiciest Bloody Mary I’ve ever had, and had a great time walking along Bourbon Street and people watching. If you stayed in the French Quarter, you might not have any idea that Katrina was less than a year ago. If you’ve always wanted to vacation in New Orleans, do it now.

At the NPR sponsored lunch NPR’s John Burnett talked about covering Katrina and brought tears to many. He encouraged everyone to journey outside of the quarter to see the devastation in the lower 9th ward for ourselves.

Yesterday I did just that. Michelle Jeffery from Vermont Public Radio and I got in a cab and visited the lower 9th ward. Words can’t express how we felt driving past rows and rows of houses that were flooded and twisted beyond imagination by Katrina. There were watermarks on the houses near the roof and red marks indicating when houses were checked by emergency workers and if there were people or animals inside. There were cars turned upside down. There were piles of what was once someone’s belongings in front of houses. One pile had a Barney doll on the top of it. It was just so hard to believe that Katrina hit almost a year ago and the community is still this devastated. I felt sad and sick and mad that this place that was once a neighborhood of artists, musicians, and the working class people who serve the tourists could still look like this!

Michelle and I both decided not to take any pictures because the pictures just couldn’t convey what we were seeing all around us. Also I usually take pictures of things I want to look at again. I don’t want to see that again but I’m glad I saw it once and it will fuel me to want to keep doing what I can to help those who were impacted.

Don’t get Katrina fatigue! Rebuilding will take years and help is needed. Do what you can to help the people, the musicians, the schools, and the culture.

This video on YouTube was taken several months ago but the 9th ward still looks much the same as it does in this video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y7vstyAZZY

It’s hard to look at this but I hope you’ll take a few minutes to think about what you can do to help those impacted by Katrina -- whether it is going to New Orleans to get wild on Bourbon St. for a weekend or sending books and musical instruments to help rebuild the schools, or sending money to the relief agency of your choice, please keep helping.

WWOZ Update

betsyh — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 15:36:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I wrote on my blog about WWOZ in New Orleans. I just wanted to give an update to report that their efforts to rebuild the station AND the musical community of New Orleans are coming along nicely. There is still a long way to go but they have been receiving donations from generous listeners from around the world. Their webmaster has been doing an excellent job of turning their site into a real virtual community. There are stories and photos on the site and they are seeking stories and photos from listeners.

I was so moved by the blog post written by the WWOZ GM just after Hurricane Katrina hit that I volunteered my time to try to help the station as much as I could. I want to say thanks to GetActive Software, C.L. Graphics, and Frank Roman Partners, and Memsys who all generously pitched in to provide services for WWOZ when I asked. There is still a long way to go, but things are really looking up for the station!

If you’d like to make an online contribution you can do so at http://www.wwoz.org