"A Mercifully Brief Real World Guide to Raising Thousands (if Not Tens of Thousands) of Dollars with Email" is the title of Donordigital president Madeline Stanionis' first book, published by Emerson and Church. It's a spellbinding guide to fundraising online, which delivers strategy and attitude in equal doses. In the aftermath of the surge in online fundraising in 2005 related to the Asian tsunami and Katrina, this book cracks the code on how to build online relationships with stakeholders. Every nonprofit executive director in America should read this book. N-TEN's Michael Stein interviews Madeline Stanionis.

N-TEN: For a "Mercifully Brief Real World Guide" that's an unmercifully long and bold title.

Madeline: I actually didn't pick the title, it's part of a series of "Mercifully Brief" guides published by Emerson and Church. They're publishing several other books on fundraising, so it seemed only natural to them to do one on email. Someone they know suggested that I had the right breezy style that would be perfect for this book. It sounds like I talk, fast. This book is not an erudite intellectual tome. It's a really quick read, which is what the publisher wanted. But there's so much that's not in this book, it's painful for me to think about sometimes.

N-TEN: I noticed there's an "if" in the title, did the lawyers make you do that?

Madeline: The "if" means that no one knows how successful you'll be online until you try it. I think that's the moral of the book and of the whole industry of online fundraising. Truthfully, our understanding of what works online or even what people want to do online is constantly changing, evolving. I write over and over in the book about testing and trying. Nonprofits that want to use email for fundraising need to get out there, to look at what other people are doing, emulate them, copy them, and see what works. And what works is different for each nonprofit agency.

N-TEN: Who were you writing this book for? Is it written for nonprofits that have not done any online fundraising, or for groups who have tried it and for whom it hasn't worked?

Madeline: I think for both of those people, for somewhere in between the two. I wasn't writing this for the complete beginner, nor was I writing it for the advanced expert. I envisioned a midsize nonprofit organization that already has a website, already has a donation page, and has done a fair amount of email communications with stakeholders. It's not how to get started from zero, though I'd like to think those folks would get something out of the book, and I also think that advanced folks can learn something too. My goal was to give organizations trying to succeed online a shot of energy, help them amp up their volume online.

N-TEN: This book is specifically about fundraising with email, not about the web or the Internet more generally.

Madeline: I wanted to talk just about email. I went looking for other books on this subject and didn't find any. People dance around this topic, but I wanted to talk about it head on. I think people are embarrassed sometimes to talk about this topic. It's pretty much what I do every day for nonprofit clients, which is raising money online, helping people think through content, creating a calendar, executing each email campaign, and helping groups jump on special opportunities as they arise.

N-TEN: This book seems like a great moment in time, and you look back on 2005 with the Asian tsunami and Katrina and help us reflect on the renewed emergence of the Net as a place to connect with others, that brings people together.

Madeline: Once again a huge swell of people came online to connect with others, give money, read the news, read the blogs. And not just for fundraising, although that was a big outcome. The real story here is that people went online to help others, to be part of the solution. For once the online experience became really personal for people. People were using the Web to find lost relatives and friends. My dad was reading blogs about Katrina, and he's never looked at blogs before. And money played a big part too. For clients that I worked with such as the Humane Society of the United States that did fundraising related to Katrina, more money came in online than offline.

N-TEN: You're president of the consulting firm Donordigital which helps clients with online fundraising, advocacy and marketing. Can a nonprofit get started with a book like yours or will they need the help of a consulting firm to succeed?

Madeline: I don't think that raising money online is rocket science. It's a modern form of direct marketing, whose goal is to encourage someone to act with their heart and their mind and their pocketbook. People do come to consulting firms for strategy and ideas, but they also come to get help with the actual work of fundraising, writing the email copy, working with the online vendors, to analyzing the metrics after each campaign. I say it's not rocket science, because I don't think it's a science yet. There is still so much for us to learn.

N-TEN: A lot of online learning in 2005 came from natural disasters. How do you apply that learning more broadly?

Madeline: It's all about the timing, which I devote a whole chapter to. Some nonprofits might say that their agency is not going to have a crisis like a hurricane, but organizations have crises all the time. You can't work in a nonprofit and not have something happen: the water main broke, someone broke in, we can't make payroll, we didn't get a grant we wanted. The key is developing a relationship with your constituency such that when something bad happens - or when you can celebrate something great - that they're there for you, that people will rally around your cause. That's where the timing comes in. So, for example, your agency didn't get the grant you needed, and it's going to make the difference for opening the summer camp for kids, and you need to raise $30,000 in three weeks so you can open your doors, that's a crisis, that's a perfect opportunity. The key is to be ready for it, by having those relationships built, and having your systems in place.

N-TEN: What kind of systems should nonprofits have in place?

Madeline: For the midsize groups that this book is written for, I think it means at the very least a system for sending out email, a system for storing the names on your list, and a system for collecting online donations. Ideally, nonprofits should be using an application service provider (ASP) that has integrated these pieces together. By integrated I mean that the various modules work in concert together. The donation processing works together with the email messaging, which is connected to the advocacy or the events. You should be able to quickly send a follow-up email based on a response that someone made on your donation or volunteer page.

N-TEN: It seems like a lot of groups are understanding the importance of using integrated online tools right. I suppose that's what we mean by "Web 2.0."

Madeline: I think groups should be seriously thinking about switching from services that just do email or just do donation processing. The whole process is a heck of a lot easier once the online data management part is run efficiently. What's exciting right now is that there are many tech vendor options available to organizations, at a number of different price levels and every agency should be able to find an integrated online service provider that is right for them. I list some of them in the back of the book.

N-TEN: In the book, you also devote a fair amount of time to the human systems that influence online fundraising.

Madeline: To be successful at online fundraising your organization has to be nimble. That means having good decision-making systems so the right people in an agency can quickly sign off on an online campaign. You have to be able to make a decision in 24 hours. Likewise, it also means planning ahead. The end of the year is coming every year, and an agency shouldn't be scrambling to do fundraising in December.

N-TEN: This book is filled with inspiring real-world examples, I think people are going to love them.

Madeline: With the examples I use in the book, I wanted to show how important it is to be honest, heartfelt and immediate when raising money with email. A great example is an appeal done by the Massachusetts SPCA which had a fire at one of their animal shelters. It was an awful thing, and luckily all animals and humans were safe, but they decided to put the accident out in front of people, to explain that their insurance wouldn't cover all their costs to rebuild and refurbish the shelter, and people in the community responded. It's important that email appeals come from real people and that they have real emotion.

I also wanted to show the role of creativity in the real-world examples. Groups have to tap into their creative selves to find ways to cut through the clutter of people's in-boxes. I'm thinking of the recent appeal that NARAL Pro-Choice America did related to the FDA's foot-dragging on the approval of over-the-counter emergency contraception. NARAL's online campaign asked people to donate $10 so they could send an egg-timer to the FDA, which is clever, and NARAL supporters responded to that.

N-TEN: How can people buy the book?

Madeline: They should go to www.emersonandchurch.com