But does that mean that your organization also blurred the department lines as well? Probably not. Even the most advanced organizations squabble over who gets to send an e-mail and when. So, fundraising folks are responsible for your online appeals, the advocacy department sends the action alerts, etc. etc. etc.

This is challenging to manage, and even worse, the unfortunate result is often a stream of e-mail messages that can leave your donor confused and overwhelmed – and less likely to give, take action, and attend your events.

That’s why rethinking how you staff your online relationship-building and fundraising program is so important. Here are my recommendations:

• Someone needs to be in charge. That someone ought to be a strategist, not a button-pusher. Is it a communications person? An advocacy staffmember? Or someone from development?
  
  An advocacy-oriented person will bring political savvy and a commitment to participatory action that works very well online.
  
  And communications folks bring the brand and the message.
  
  However, I tend to lean towards putting a direct marketer from development in charge, simply because direct marketing folks tend to understand relationship-building with many people at a time (naturally, it’s very beneficial if he or she has the perspective of the other disciplines as well).
  
  Of course, the best organizational Internet strategist I know came from none of the above but from the program side of the house instead. So…you never know.
   
• Form a small interdisciplinary team. One group I know has an interdisciplinary team – but it’s about 20 people strong. Ever try to get something done with a team of 20? Not gonna work.
  
  The best team has the aforementioned leader, and reps from political, IT, development and maybe communications. That’s it – four or five people whom your organization has empowered to run the program.
   
• Empower your online strategist and his or her team. Too often, I’ve seen the Internet strategist and team become a coordinating body that simply accommodates and schedules the plethora of requests to send various e-mails. . Ideally, your team is much more than that! They should reflect your organizational priorities in their strategy, schedule, and practices – and are thus empowered to say “no” when a pet project of a long-time staffmember doesn’t fit the online goals and campaigns.
   
• Make your team responsible for the story. Not long ago, my firm looked at “a month in the life” of several types of an organization’s online constituents to see just what story each was experiencing from the organization. Did the series of e-mail messages tell a story? Did it even make sense?
  
  This is the job of your team: to determine what the right next message is for your constituents. In other words it’s their job to tell the story.
   
• As they say…be the change you seek. Look, empowering an interdisciplinary team to run your online program means some people need to give up control. You might be one of those people. That means being flexible when the team runs with an action alert based on a news event when there was an appeal scheduled.

Are you accomplishing your online work in a way that, well, works? I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a line at the address below.

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