What is a nation?
A:A nation is group of people united behind a common purpose. Everyone who cares about what you are doing -- your fans, followers, constituents, members, donors, volunteers, customers, shareholders, and partners -- are all part of your nation. Think Colbert Nation, Fox Nation, even Bieber Nation.
What is NationBuilder?
A:The essential toolkit for a new generation of leaders and creators. Whether you are a political candidate, advocacy group, artist, or aspiring to greatness, NationBuilder provides the tools you need to organize and build your base of support... to build your nation.
The geekier explanation is that NationBuilder is both a CMS and CRM, which is very unusual. Usually the website is kept separate from the people database and then everyone agonizes over how big a pain it is to connect the two. Not anymore.
Why do I need NationBuilder?
A:The Internet makes it possible for independent leaders and creators to build their own base of support outside the traditional gatekeepers like political parties, publishing houses, film studios, etc. It’s a great opportunity, but now you have to deal with a slew of different technologies with new ones showing up every day. It can be quite overwhelming.
NationBuilder allows you to create a real and lasting foundation of support. User engagement and retention are at the core of the NationBuilder design. Encouraging users to take action, whether it be to comment on a blog post, attend a film screening, or call their Senator, builds grassroots support. Anybody can read a web page, but it is when people take that next step of action that they truly become a stakeholder and lasting supporter, who will recruit others to join.
Your supporters are out there, but they are dispersed and don’t all communicate the same way. With NationBuilder you can connect with them, and the more they get involved, the more their peers will want to get involved, and the more powerful all of you will become.
What can I do with it?
A:If you are a leader or creator you know that you need to organize your supporters online and offline to reach your goals. Right now, there are a whole slew of web tools designed to help you do this which include email marketing tools, donation processors, event organizing platforms, petition tools, Ning social networks, text messaging and voicemail providers, donor databases, and content management systems. Not to mention your Facebook page, or Twitter account! NationBuilder pulls all of these together into one integrated web-based tool you can access from anywhere on the Internet. See screen shots in the feature tour.
You'll have all of your communications in one place. Keep track of individual communications with one person or mass communications by sending out blast emails, text messages, tweets and status updates.
You can view, catalogue, and organize all the people that contact, talk about, and follow you. You get a dashboard where you can view everything from who just signed up for your email newsletter, to who just donated, who is attending the scheduled Facebook event this Friday night, or who is tweeting about you - all in real time.
You’ll get a highly customizable website with blogs, suggestion boxes, feedback forms, events, surveys, petitions, everything you need to serve your nation, and everything your members need to connect with each other. They can get their own personalized profiles, connect with their friends, coordinate events, post to your blog, sign petitions, whatever you want. With personal tracking links, they can recruit new members and earn credit for it with our built-in currency, political capital, which helps your nation stay healthy and strong.
But I don't have a nation!
A:That's why you need to start building one!
If you are a political campaign, you need to build a nation so you can get elected.
If you are an artist, you need to build a nation so people will come to your gallery, buy your work, and tell their friends.
If you are a non-profit, you need to build a nation to raise awareness for your cause, engage donors and fulfill your purpose.
If you are an independent filmmaker, you need to build a nation so people will see your film, buy it on iTunes, and host a screening.
If you are an author, you need to build a nation so someone will read your book, your ideas will spread, and you will be invited to TED.
If you want to have an impact in the 21st century, you need to build a nation.
Who uses NationBuilder? Is it only for political campaigns and non-profits?
A:Our initial focus has been on activists, political campaigns, non-profits and advocacy groups, but we hope all kinds of independent leaders and creators like authors, filmmakers, musicians, artists, journalists, small businesses and churches will find NationBuilder useful.
We are also completely non-partisan. We only state this because most tools used in the political world are only available to one side or the other, which we think is wrong. The tools of democracy should be available to everyone, and we are deeply committed to that.
Does NationBuilder have an API?
A:We presently have a webhooks API, which can push data to a URL when a signup, donation, or contact is created. There is no REST API yet for pushing data in or querying it, although we absolutely plan to have one in the future.
How technical do I need to be?
A:We built NationBuilder so users with very limited technical knowledge can be quickly up and running. You do not need to know any HTML or CSS to setup your web site or create new pages. All the best practices for activities such as fundraising, petitions, surveys and so on are built-in, so you take advantage of them automatically. Facebook and Twitter are also automatically integrated, so you don't even need to figure out widgets. However, if you have HTML and CSS knowledge, you will be able to create custom themes and change everything down to the last detail.
Do I need to purchase anything else, like a blog or email blaster?
A:No. A best in breed email blaster with the best delivery rates around and full tracking is included. Likewise, blogs are completely integrated, as are many other tools you would normally have to buy elsewhere, configure, and integrate with.
I already have a website, how do I transfer it over?
A:You can use the NationBuilder theme editor to transfer over your HTML and CSS to match the look and feel of your NationBuilder website with your existing site. However, NationBuilder has many different types of "pages" where features and best practices of specific activities (such as petitions or donating) are built in. Recreating these pages is quick and easy and they will inherit the design you configured in the theme editor. You also have full access to the HTML and CSS of every page.
If you don't have the time or ability to do this, we can refer you to consultants experienced in customizing NationBuilder for you. Just drop us an email.
Can I embed NationBuilder into my existing website?
A:Not yet. The idea is that NationBuilder will replace your existing website(s), and it's completely customizable so you can configure it to look and function like whatever you want. We’ll have an API and widgets available in the future, so you will be able to integrate into other websites then.
Does NationBuilder integrate with any other CMS platforms?
A:NationBuilder does not currently integrate with other CMS (content management system) platforms like WordPress or Drupal. This type of integration is coming soon, but NationBuilder is designed to actually replace those tools for a lot of people, and be a huge upgrade.
Big usability problems frequently arise in the interaction between activism tools, CMS tools, and social networking sites like Facebook, so creating a platform that was fully integrated was our first mission. This is part of what creates such a great user experience for you and your users.
But soon you will be able to take just the elements of NationBuilder you like and mix and match them with whatever other tools you may want to use.
Will NationBuilder be around in two years?
A:Yes, NationBuilder is a new service. If you are concerned about that, or have to convince the "powers that be" at your organization that we are legit, here is what you can tell them.
We are an incredibly experienced and committed team, who have built several companies and non-profits from the ground up. Our parent company, 3dna, was founded in 2008 and includes other products such as the popular Twitter petition site act.ly. The engineers and organizers behind NationBuilder have deep and rich experience in software development, tech company management, journalism, film production, government and cause organizing. You can read more about us here.
NationBuilder is also well-funded, and early investors include Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. We are committed to growing our essential organizing toolkit long into the future, and are developing a large network of designers, developers and consultants who share our vision.
Can I use my own domain name?
A:Yes. There is a $5 per month charge, and you will need to point your domain servers to our cloud. We can help you through it, just email us in advance to schedule the switchover.
There are two ways your custom domain can be set up.
- You host the DNS wherever you want and just add a CNAME pointing www.yoursite.com to proxy.nationbuilder.com. Then you just send us an email and we turn it on. The downside to this is that you will need to figure out some way to redirect yoursite.com to www.yoursite.com because we cannot do that for you and most DNS services cannot either.
- The alternative is that we host your DNS for you, and you point your name servers to us. Then we can handle the redirect for you, but we will also need to make sure your email is configured properly. If you are using Google Apps, that's easy, but in general, we will need to take a look at how you are currently set up to make sure everything goes smoothly. Our name servers are:
- ns10.nationbuilder.com
- ns11.nationbuilder.com
- ns12.nationbuilder.com
- ns13.nationbuilder.com
- ns14.nationbuilder.com
- ns15.nationbuilder.com
How do I get my data in?
A:We provide spreadsheet import tools to take your existing supporter information and import it. You won't have any problem consolidating all your contacts, whether they are in an existing email tool like Constant Contact, or laying around in an Outlook database somewhere.
How do I access and manage my data?
A:In your NationBuilder control panel you get full access to your database. There are a variety of management tools meant to make things very easy. Within your database you will be able to create lists for targeted email campaigns, event invites, and whatever else you may need. You can also export and import all your customer and supporter data at any time. If you decide to leave, it's even possible to get an entire copy of your database by request.
Can I use NationBuilder to raise money?
A:Yes. NationBuilder allows you to set up a donation page and start collecting donations quickly. Donation pages are simple and secure, and all of your new donors will become supporters in your database so that you can keep track of them. The finances tab in the control panel makes it easy to view, sort, and organize all of your financial data and donation drives.
Will NationBuilder put ads on my website?
A:No. NationBuilder will never put ads up on your website.
However, you are free to put your own ads up on your website and earn money from them. Currently, none of our official themes allow for ads, so if you wanted to do this you would have to create your own theme in the custom theme creator.
Will my website crash if a million people show up all of a sudden?
A:No. Your NationBuilder website and database is all hosted and managed by the very experienced team at RailsMachine, who monitors it and keeps it running 24/7. We are set up to handle a lot of traffic, and are able to increase capacity very quickly if needed. There is no additional charge.
Is NationBuilder available outside of the U.S.?
A:Yes, NationBuilder is available to people outside of the U.S.
Right now we don't offer voicemail to customers outside the U.S. and Canada, and text messaging to customers outside of the continential U.S., but our goal is to increase the number of countries where that is available over time.
NationBuilder is currently only available in English.
When do I get billed?
A:After your free 14-day trial period, you will be billed on a monthly basis.
NationBuilder pricing plans a determined by the amount of people in your database. You will be charged additionally for email blasting and text messaging, these too are monthly charges based on the ammount of people on your email list and text list respectively.
What if I need support?
A:In addition to our FAQ and screencasts pages, we'll be happy to offer you customer support at no additional charge.
Once you sign up for a NationBuilder account you'll have our support email, where you'll be able to reach us any time. If need be, we'll be happy to set up a call in order to walk you through whatever issue you might be having.
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Frequently asked questions about NationBuilder
