Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Advertise on the moon and save mankind

It couldn't have been announced at a better time. On the 40th anniversary of man landing on the moon, some money-grubbing inventors have proclaimed their desire to capitalize on the moon's massive amount of advertising real estate using Shadow Shaping robots.

But, let's cut them some slack. According to their website, MoonPublicity.com, there are greater values than simple monetary gains (otherwise it would be "unethical")...

"Creating images on the Moon provides a commercial incentive for turbo charging space travel technology. Shadows are only the beginning. These advancements will eventually place robots on other worlds building space stations and planting crops.

Shadow Shaping only works during partial phases of the Moon. The full Moon will always be the same. If shadows form a logo during a quarter moon, it will be a small price to pay for saving mankind."

You could help save mankind too with your minimum bid of $46,000.

Source: Gizmodo

UPDATE: I noticed a comment that appeared, and quickly disappeared, on their YouTube video from "MoonPublicity" around 12:00 AM EST this morning that said ads could take years to produce depending on the size of the graphic and number of robots.

Labels: advertising, branding

posted by becky terhaar at 2:17 AM   0 comments

Friday, July 10, 2009

Are you on Myspace? You must hate exercising...

Labels: social media

posted by katie geraci at 12:35 PM   0 comments

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

How to gain more online donations

Like anyone, I like to consider myself a generous, caring, compassionate person. But as a wife and mother with a career, I rarely find myself with the time, let alone patience, to dig for my credit card and enter in all my billing information to make an online donation.

It's happened time and again where I receive an email promotion for a cause I love, click through to make a donation, and abandon the site because I couldn't spare another 5 minutes to fill out the forms...

A simple solution: PayPal - the popular payment option used on eBay.com. (And no, this is not a plug :))

Why not give your online audience two options to make a donation - 1) standard credit card entry and 2) PayPal. To the general public, PayPal is free, secure, and only requires a one time registration process to fill in your credit/bank information where it is permanently stored thereafter. So as a user, when you want to make an online donation (or consumer purchase), all you have to do is enter your dollar amount, email address, and confirm. Donation made.

I found this article "Fundraising with PayPal", by Deane Brengle, which talks about the same concept in more detail including any fees involved to the nonprofit.

Here are a couple examples of organizations using PayPal:

Washington Physicians Health Program l Donation Site
Soldiers' Angels l Donation Site l PayPal Case Study
Bob Woodroff Foundation l Donation Site

You can also register your nonprofit to receive donations through eBay via MissionFish.org. (Thanks to Alan Yu for that tid-bit!).

Tip: Once you're set up with PayPal, take it a step further and promote the new donation feature, and how quick and easy it is to use, in your outgoing email promotions.

Labels: fundraising, Internet, nonprofit

posted by becky terhaar at 1:05 PM   0 comments