Web ROI – It’s not just $

My Beaconfire colleague, Marissa Goldsmith, and I are really excited about the possibility of conducting a workshop at SxSw on Web ROI. If you are too, please help us get selected.  In the SxSw panel picker, enter your comments about why you think this would be a great session:  http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/9694

Why bother? Nonprofit budgets have always been tight, and they’re getting even tighter.  How helpful would it be to have a framework that would help you prioritize your online projects (particularly those that are not revenue generating) and define what “success” means?   A framework that is not subjective and arbitrary, but thoughtful, practical, and designed to facilitate your (or others) decision-making.  Easy, peasy, right?

Marissa and I participated recently in an informal meeting with staffers from CARE, UNICEF, MercyCorps, as well as some of our colleagues in on the consulting side (Donor Digital, M&R) to try and untangle the complex topic of Web ROI.  The group succeeded in defining some common approaches to measuring ROI related to online fundraising. However, the non-monetary returns proved more complex and we simply ran out of time.  Yet, there was a lot of interest in continuing with the challenge.

So Marissa and I are pushing for workshops at both SxSw and NTC to continue the dialog on Web ROI. We will not be teaching you how to leverage a framework that exists.  Nooo… These will be working sessions, with you the audience,  to continue making progress on a potential framework.  Assuming, that is, that we are actually selected by the conference organizers…

So run, do not walk, to the nearest SxSw panel picker at:  http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/9694  and put in a plug for our session.  The NTC voting opens in early September, so stay tuned for another plea for votes.