While the scope and diversity in types of non-profit organizations are as varied as our economy at large, including religious organizations, advocacy groups and social service institutions to theaters, opera companies and historical societies, their general objectives and challenges are remarkably similar. Nearly all non-profits aspire to improve the lives or well-being of those whom they endeavor to serve.

The challenge is, given all the competing interests of the marketplace, how should non-profits best engage with their constituents to realize their lofty goals? How should non-profits recruit community volunteers, financial donors, event participants or just educate the public at large of the services they offer? How can non-profits maximize their engagement and communications efforts while still staying focused on their primary missions? How can an organization create a community around their cause? iMrkr provides the tools to do just that.

iMrkr's community tools enable non-profits to remain focused on their primary missions of delivering services, by harnessing the power of individual participation and stewardship. Each iMrkr solution provides the tools needed to engage constituents, get them participating with your cause and keep them involved on an on-going basis. iMrkr's multiple profile platform allows organization members and potential contributors connect and communicate on their own terms, sharing only that part of themselves most relevant to the mission at hand. Our community tools enable members to share blogs, video or even instant message with one another. Even more unique is our serialized token technology which provides countless cross promotional and communication possibilities. For more information on how iMrkr can help your non-profit achieve its goals, read the example use below.

Summary:

• Lead by local cancer research activists, the yearly fundraising event gathers more than 3,000 participants and raises nearly 6 million dollars. Understanding the power of bringing a community together, the organizers of the event want to improve their efforts in two important ways. One, organizers want to find a way to help their dedicated volunteers connect with potential donors, raise their donation quotas and possibly even surpass their targets. Secondly, organizers want to find a way to maintain the energy of the event all year long, continuing to raise monies and awareness long after the event banners were taken down.
• By providing volunteers with the ‘Your iMrkr' tool, organizers are able to help participants raise more money than any previous year. For the first time, participants will be able to effectively connect with donors, track their fundraising efforts, share their stories with others involved and maintain a yearlong connection with all of those they had met along the way.
• Based on the success of the ‘Your iMrkr' implementation, organizers may want to implement the Community Lite solution for next years event. Understanding that many of the most active volunteers are the same individuals who are active in other similar events and charities, organizers are excited about harnessing the passions of all these events into one on-line community.

Challenge: Improving fundraising efforts and maintaining activism well beyond the day of the event.

Clearly, having people sign up for an event and then sending them on their way to raise money with little to no help isn't the most effective way to hit financial targets. While, by most measures the previous year's fundraising event was a success, organizers knew that they could do better. Organizers had written up long ‘Fundraising Tips' hand outs, maintained a Blog on their web site, even held weekly meetings leading up to the event to help their volunteers with their efforts, but they still felt like they were falling short.

The ‘Tips' hand-out helped people get started, but fell short in truly helping volunteers make the meaningful connections they needed with possible contributors. The Blog seemed to help some, but for others, it was just too ‘public'. For those who could attend, the meetings were a great way to stay connected and share stories, but for many, working long hours while raising families, finding the time was just too difficult. The event organizers needed to find a way to help their volunteers raise money, create connections with their contributors and stay connected with each other if they were really ever going to make the kind of progress they felt they could.

Solution: Your iMrkr, branded tools for better fundraising and community awareness.

Once organizers had decided they needed help in order to improve beyond their current level of success, they quickly settled on iMrkr as their tool of choice. "iMrkr really transformed the whole process for me. For the first time, I was able to connect with donors in truly meaningful ways. Where I used to feel like I was selling our event, for the first time I really felt like I was sharing my experience" Joan said after using iMrkr for the first time.

According to the organizers of the event, one of the biggest challenges was finding ways for volunteers to connect with potential donors without feeling like they were putting on the hard sell. "We needed a tool that let donors connect with our volunteers on their own terms, learning about victim's stories, survivors' struggles and research progress at a pace that was comfortable for them", recalls Diana of Volunteer Relations. The experiences of those whom have faced Cancer, either as a survivor or as a loved one of a victim are intensely personal. Finding a tool that lets those involved share their stories with a sense of security and intimacy was critical.

The event organizers focused in on iMrkr for several key features. First was for iMrkr's unique profile management system. Unlike any other social media tools on the market today, iMrkr allows users of the system to maintain several ‘versions of one's self'. That is, multiple profiles, some public some private, all with different content based from a single master. It is in this way that volunteers can shape how they connect and communicat with potential donors and other volunteers in a very personalized way. Since a volunteer can maintain profiles which speak to the many aspects of the event, the disease, and even themselves, they can customize their message to their audience. If a donor is particularly touched by a story of survival, the volunteer can direct their communications to what mattered most to the donor, stories of bravery and love. If a donor is more interested in the actual event, the volunteer can use the profile which focuses on how to get involved and what they might expect to get out of their effort. In this way, volunteers are able to communicate what they want with whom they want without fear of broadcasting unrelated or inappropriate information. "At first I was worried that it was going to take too much to set up and manage to be useful, but once I created my master profile, the rest was smooth sailing" John, an early user commented.

Once the volunteers create their master profiles and allocate which information should be connected to which profiles, the real fun can begin! Something else unique to the iMrkr system are serialized tokens… a fancy way of saying iMrkr helps you bridge the gap from the virtual to the physical world. These numbers can then be placed on anything physical, from a calling card to a hat to a bracelet to an event id. The numbers connect the recipient to specific content. Here is the best part, ONLY the person receiving that token can see the content associated with that token- hence the ability to customize your message, not just to a group, but all the way down to an individual if one so chooses.

Something else this does is it allows volunteers the ability to track who is logging in and giving, not just before the event, but long after. And since donors could leave personal, private messages for the volunteers, entire dialogs began as a result. In some instances donors created their own profiles so they too could get involved.

Now for the first time volunteers have an easily replicable fundraising and awarness system, and they are able to continue interacting with each other and their donors long after the event has taken down its banners. Friendships are born, a community comes together, and because of iMrkr's tools, the community can stay together for the next event.

Features:

• Multiple Secured Profiles
• Custom iMrkrs
• User Event calendar
• Profile based Multi media publishing
• Individual Blogs
• Community Classifieds
• Business Listings
• Storefronts

Benefits:

• Great ice breaker.
• Increased chance of starting a dialogue with the fund raising prospect.
• Easily replicated contact and fund raising approach system.
• Self vetting fund raising contact system for more efficient distribution of product samples.
• Create micro community portals for fund raising teams.
• Rapid feedback of fund raising approach effectiveness through response tracking.
• Intelligent networking: share what you want with who you want to have it.
• Personal promotion tool.
• The ideal middle ground to contact and connect with others.
• The ability to completely personalize what is shared with others.
• Lowers the risks associated with social interactions.
• The physical iMrkr itself can be used to make a statement, or portray a certain image.
• On-line profile aggregation.