2013 NTC: How 2 Nonprofits Utilize Social-Media Data, Part 1

• 60 percent of its members were on social networks.
• Donors on social were bigger givers, especially donors on LinkedIn.
• Donors on social tended to respond better to mail solicitations, particularly those on Facebook and Twitter.
• Major-gift prospects were fairly social.

"Everyone is social. There are donors of every gift level on social," Golden said. "It's about what you can find out about them, and there will be more access to wealthy donors as more of them adopt social media."

So with all this data, NWF wanted to have a context of its donors on social. The goals were to make social smarter, focus on social reporting that's relevant, make traditional campaigns smarter by incorporating social, and monitor long-term benefits and changes to donors.

So Brigida started using the data when interacting with individuals — knowing whether they were donors, what level, advocates, etc. — and communicating appropriately. Then she was able to drill down into the data to figure out statistics like how many members these people have talked to and was able to drill down into different high-value groups like lapsed subscribers. Then she shares that data with the other departments so they can use it as needed.

"I look at my job as an air-traffic controller," she said. "The data doesn't stop with me. I pass it on to my staff so they can use it."

Check back next week to learn how NWF incorporated its social data further, and how CARE has followed suit.