Google for Nonprofits Blog: June 2011

Nonprofit Industry Benchmark Report For Health Care

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

monthly benchmarking seriesNTEE non-profit categories.
most likely to track “donations”"reaching new constituents"main mission objective"raising awareness"main marketing objective20% of their total site visitsfrom their Grants AdWords account6,500 conversions10%se an agency, SEO or SEMPosted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team

Global Warming Effects and Solutions in the Climate Hot Map

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Climate Hot MapWeight of the Evidence

These solutions help give people hope that mitigating the impacts of climate change is possible.

In addition to providing this valuable educational resource and advocacy tool, the Climate Hot Map has announced a Scavenger Hunt. Answer eight questions about where specific impacts of climate change and global warming are already taking place and you could win prizes like an Earthwatch expedition.

This project was funded by Google.org and Google Earth Outreach’s GeoChallenge Grants. This year, we’re supporting a new crop of projects through Developer Grants and can’t wait to see the latest ways nonprofits are using Google Earth and Maps to tell their stories.
Posted by Tanya Keen, Google Earth Outreach Team

Google And The Ad Council Team Up To Help Nonprofits Create Effective Public Service Advertising

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Editor’s note: Our guest blogger today is Kate Emanuel, Senior Vice President of Nonprofit & Government Affairs at the Ad Council, the leading producer of public service advertising campaigns.quarterly workshopmobile marketingonline contestsbloggingYouTubeonline video

Google Grants: Free AdWords advertising given to select charitable organizations to solicit donations, recruit volunteers and raise awareness

Mapping Technologies: How you can bring your story to life using Google Earth and Maps)

Google Analytics: How to analyze your web traffic in an entirely new way. Or track email campaigns, banner ads, web-enabled phones, mobile websites and mobile apps.)

Google AnalyticsGrantsGeochannelwww.google.com/nonprofitsPosted by Kate Emanuel, The Ad Council

An Introduction To Map-Making, Part 2

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Last weekGoogle Maps My PlacesGoogle Fusion TablesMarinSpaceGoogle Earth Outreach workshop

Nonprofits in Marin Map by MarinSpace

Who doesn’t like a little instant gratification? Let’s get started on our own map, shall we?

Before you start:

You’ll need to have a Google Account to use Fusion Tables, so create a free account if you don’t have one.
Prepare a dataset with location information to import into Fusion Tables. You can use comma-separated files (.csv), Microsoft Excel files (.xls, .xlsx), an OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods), Keyhole Markup Language (.kml) or data already in a Google Spreadsheet.

1. Go to http://www.google.com/fusiontables/ and log into your Google Account.
2. Click the New Table button to get a drop-down menu and choose Import Table.
3. Specify the file you’d like to upload. For this example, I’m using a sample Google Spreadsheet of my nonprofit’s locations with a column for each type of additional information that I want to associate with the locations.

Once you’ve selected the file click Next. The next two steps allow you to select which columns you’d like to import and add attributes. Proceed through the steps and click Finish.
4. You will now see your data displayed as a table.

Fusion Tables tries to recognize columns with locations during import and automatically categorize them as location data. You can skip ahead to step 5 to try this out, but if for some reason Fusion Tables didn’t recognize the correct location column, you’ll need to set it manually. To set the locaiton column manually, click Edit, then Modify columns. Select the appropriate column and set type to Location. Save your changes.

5. You are now one step away from your map! Click the Visualize menu and select Map. Fusion Tables should now geocode the location information in the column you’ve specified and create your map.

6. Now the fun really begins. You can use the options above your map to customize your info windows and make them more appealing (add links, select which fields appear, etc.). You can make your info window content more rich by including images, videos, data charts and more. Next you might want to configure your placemark style by changing their color or icon, or using one of the other style options.
Note: If you have polygon or line data in a GIS shapefile or KML file, you can also add and style in Fusion Tables. Just import your KML file the same way you imported a spreadsheet, or use shapescape to import a GIS shapefile.
7. Once you are satisfied with your map, click Get embeddable link for the code to embed it in your organization’s website.

If you’d like step-by-step instructions, you can find them in the Google Earth Outreach "Fusion Mapper" tutorial. Once you’ve mastered the basics, there are a many more things you can do with Fusion Tables. Check out the Google Fusion Tables Example Gallery and the tutorials in the Fusion Tables Help Center for inspiration and guidance. To add options for users to search your map or use a drop down menu to filter results on your map, check out the FusionTablesLayer Builder.

I hope this Fusion Tables map primer will help get your mapping creative juices flowing! For more tutorials and resources, see the Google Earth Outreach website.

Posted by Raleigh Seamster, Google Earth Outreach Team

Using Analytics To Understand Your Website's ROI

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Google AnalyticsGoals

Valuing donations made via your website is easy if you use Conversion Tracking in your AdWords account. Installing a Conversion Tracking code snippet on the “Thank You” page will enable you to track the number of donations (i.e., conversions) and their dollar value. If you prefer not to use Conversion Tracking, you can use Google Analytics goals data and data from your online payment processor to determine the average online donation amount. Divide the dollars donated via your website during a month (week, quarter, etc.) by the number of people who triggered your donation “goal” in Google Analytics and the result is your average online donation amount. What about finding the average value of a visit to you donations page, since not every visitor makes a donation? To find the average value of a visit to your donations page, divide the dollars donated via your website during a month (week, quarter, etc.) by the number of people who visited your donations page during that time period.

Average Online Donation =

Total Online Donations/Total # of Online Donors

Avg. Value of Visit to Donation Page =

Total Online Donations/Total # of Donation Page Visits

Determining the value of online registrations for events depends partly on the event’s purpose. If the event is a fundraiser that designed to raise money primarily through ticket sales, then the methods we used to value online donations will work well. However, what about events that use ticket sales and an auction to generate revenue? We already know how to calculate the value of the ticket sales, but how do we determine the portion of auction revenue driven by your website? Cross-reference your list of auction participants and their winning bid amounts with the list of people who signed-up online. All of the auction revenue from people who registered for the event online can be attributed to your website. So, the average value of a visit to your event registration page is the total revenue generated by that page divided by the number of people who visited it.

Avg. Value of Visits to Events Page =

Ticket Revenue + Auction Revenue/Total # of Events Page Visits

Finally, we are faced with the challenge of figuring out what a mailing list sign-up via your website is worth. The solution is similar to how we determined the portion of event auction revenue driven by your website. You’ll need to cross-reference your donor list with the list of people who signed-up for your mailing list via the website. When a donor appears on both lists, then some or all of that person’s donation should be credited to your website. The portion of the donation that is credited to the website could depend on how much time has passed since the mailing list sign-up and/or how much contact your development staff has had with the donor in the interim. The average value of a mailing list sign-up on your website is the total revenue generated (i.e., donations made) by people who signed-up during a month (week, quarter, etc.) divided by the number of sign-ups. Similarly, the value of a visit to your mailing list sign-up page is the total revenue generated by that page divided by the number of people who visited it.
Average Value of Visits to Sign Up Page = Total (or % of) Donations from people signed up via your website/Total # of Sign Up Page Visits
If you’d like more information on how to use Google Analytics please visit this website or follow their blog here.

Posted by Sam Franklin, AdWords Team

An Introduction To Map-Making, Part 1

Friday, June 3, 2011

Google Maps My Places

Map of American Councils for International Education’s offices around the world.

Map of Conservation Biology Institute’s projects.

Here’s how you can get started:
1. Go to maps.google.com and sign in to your Google Account (look for the link in the upper right-hand corner).
2. Click on the My Places link next to Get Directions under the search box. A list of all the maps you've created (or will create!) with My Places should appear in the left-hand panel.
3. Create a new map, and add a title and description, such as “Where We Work”. Set your map’s privacy settings. Don’t forget to click the Save button!
4. Now we’re ready to start adding offices! Let’s say one of your offices is in Washington, D.C. You can add it manually using the placemark icon to drop and drag a placemark on the map, or you can search for the address and add the location with the Save to Map link.
5. You can change the icon color or shape; or add text, pictures and video to your placemark by simply clicking the placemark in question when your map is in edit mode.

6. Now that you’ve got the hang of it, add your other offices!
7. Once you’ve finished your map, you can share it with others by clicking Link for the direct link and the HTML code that lets you easily embed it in your website.

If you’d like step-by-step instructions for the above, you can find them in the Google Earth Outreach "Creating Maps Using My Maps" tutorial.

If creating your first map with My Places whets your appetite for more, there’s plenty of other ways you can get creative with My Places for outreach and campaigns. You can create a map showing drop-off locations for donations like this one from Mother’s Milk Bank at Austin or a map that shows where those donations went and resulting impact on the recipients like this map showing bicycle donations to Africa from Kona Basic Needs/Kona Bike Town. Using the polygon tool (right next to the placemark tool), you can draw the districts in which your organization provides services or highlight where donor funds are going. 300 Acres did just that with a map that showed how each donor’s contribution went to save 300 acres of the Amazon Rainforest. This campaign raised over $100K in just 60 days and succeeded in buying and saving the forest from destruction.

300 Acres’s map

If you have more than just a handful of offices or project sites, or you want a more interactive map that allows users to filter placemarks or perform more complex tasks, you might want to think about using Google Maps API or Google Fusion Tables to create your map. Stay tuned next week for Part 2 of this blog post, which will describe how you can use Google Fusion Tables for mapmaking.