What do Bill Nye the Science Guy, Arne Carlson, David Politzer, and over 12,000 other scientists and science buffs have in common?
They have all signed on to Science Debate 2008. This grassroots initiative, spearheaded by a growing number of scientists and other concerned citizens, is quickly picking up momentum in the online world.
After launching their website in early December, they quickly garnered support for a presidential debate devoted to Science and Technology.
When Science Debate 2008’s email inbox reached 3,000 messages, Shawn Otto, one of the primary organizers of the initiative, knew they needed something more robust than a simple email address to track supporters. He called up thedatabank, a popular provider of nonprofit software. thedatabank agreed to host an online supporter sign up form and also a donation form for their website.
- Science Debate 2008 saw 1500 new supporters use the online signup form in the first 2 days after launch! According to Shawn, “The Databank has really helped us track our supporters and made it a lot easier to communicate with them.” Science Debate has roughly 12,500 supporters to date.
- “Click Here to Support Science Debate 2008” goes to a secure page where supporters can fill out their personal information. An optional checkbox gives Science Debate permission to publicly display the new supporter’s name on their web site. The online list of supporters is dynamically generated by the Databank software.
- Online donations are also handled through a secure Databank form. Behind the scenes, it is integrated with a payment gateway for smooth credit card processing. Donors receive an automatic email receipt, and Shawn also gets a copy so he is alerted as new donations come in. All information is automatically added to the Databank software, so that all supporter data can be managed in one place.
According to their website, “Science and technology lie at the center of a very large number of the policy issues facing our nation and the world – issues that profoundly affect our national and economic security as science and technology continue to transform our lives.” Valuing technology as they do, it made perfect sense for Science Debate to adopt thedatabank’s web-integrated database software.
The Databank is nonprofit software, used to store information about your supporters and communicate with them. thedatabank also provides online sign up forms to match your website and when a person fills it out, they are automatically added to your Databank. You can select targeted lists and easily send bulk email messages to them. Science Debate and other similar initiatives have seen real success from their use of The Databank.
UPDATE: Science Debate 2008 succeeded in getting both Barack Obama and John McCain to answer their 14 science and technology related questions.
For more information about Science Debate, visit sciencedebate.org.
To learn more about how The Databank can increase the success of your organization, contact us to begin a conversation.
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