Jocelyn Harmon, Director of Nonprofit Services, Care2 Inc.

When building an online program you have to worry about a lot of things - creating dynamic content; purchasing donation-processing software; developing landing pages; making friends with the Internet Service Providers; monitoring opens, clicks, bounce rates, and more. Who has time to think about building a list? But list-build you must, if you're ever going to scale your program, achieve significant fundraising goals, and win your advocacy battles.

According to the e-Nonprofit Benchmark Study by NTEN (Nonprofit Technology Network) and M+R Strategic Services, "one of the key determinants of grassroots strength is the size of an organization's deliverable email list. A larger list allows for greater success in just about every sphere of online engagement, from fundraising to advocacy to viral recruitment. And, since managing a 100,000-person list takes nearly as much effort as managing a 1 million-person list, economies of scale make larger lists even more valuable."

So how do you do it?

There are many ways to build your online list, including appending email addresses to your house file; collecting e-newsletter sign-ups via your website; running ads on Google; and doing lead generation. The trick is choosing the right tactics based on your return on investment (ROI). Lucky for you, Care2 is leading a workshop called, Nonprofits and New Blood: An Overview of Online Acquisition Tactics and Strategies at the Artez Interaction Conference on March 30. Specifically, we'll provide you with a broad overview of the online acquisition tactics available to your organization. We'll also talk about best practices in communicating with new subscribers when they first join your list. Register today!