Hello, everyone. My name is Dana Weinstein and I’m the Membership Director at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I’m very much interested in exploring and dialoging about the integration of social media into our membership program – specifically, from a fundraising standpoint. Potential discussion areas are:

What does a member brought in by social media outreach look like compared to a traditional membership donor? Demographics. The average direct marketing responder is in his/her 70s; what does a member brought in by social media look like? Initial giving potential. Will the social media fan/follower make a donation, and if so, how much will he/she give? Long-term profitability. How often, and in what amount, will the social media member donate?
What kind of stewardship/Membership levels should exists for a social media donor? Should there be a special type of membership for someone brought in by social media outreach (different or the same as traditional members?). Benefits. How do we reconcile new membership type with traditional membership benefits (lapel pin, certificate), since data collection is different (might only have individual’s email address)? Should a member brought in by social media receive specialized benefits, such as Applications for smartphones with Curator’s Corner, podcasts, Twitter, Facebook bundled package or “First Look” at new exhibitions/collections via ushmm.org

Should a non-money fan or follower be considered a type of member? Conversion. How do we convert a non-money fan or follower to a member?

How should success be measured? What are appropriate metrics? Expectations. What are acceptable expectations for “social media members”? Growth of #’s? Donate $? Recruit others? Spread org’s message? Is monetary component necessary for success? Is it even realistic to have financial goals for social media recruitment? Are some metrics more important than others and what do they tell us? (i.e. on Twitter—what’s most important? Click thru rates, RT’s, # of followers)

What should the fundraising communication and touchpoints be with them (fundraising-wise)? Ongoing dialogue/Communication stream. What is appropriate # of times to ask for monetary donations?

Data collection/accuracy concerns. Database. Crucial in traditional fundraising. Post office verifies and systems out there to find members who move, etc. Social media is self-reported. Accuracy? What happens when email/account changes? Cross-channel. How to find if living in other parts of organization database to integrate messages? Data Capture. How to capture more data to share across databases? Does it make sense (with differing demographics) to have universal database?

What’s Next? What happens when one media falls out of fad? And another one comes along? Time investment?