Tag Archives: online giving

New Articles / Events on Online Fundraising

Nten offers two new articles covering online giving:  Steve MacLaughlin offers an optimistic overview, showing how online giving continues to increase despite difficult economic conditions and why an integrated (online + offline) approach is best;  Rebecca Higman and Katya Andresen discuss how nonprofits can continue to engage constituents after their initial online gift, promoting recurring gifts and by remembering to thank them for their support.

Two events coming up soon: nonprofit marketing guru Kivi Leroux Miller offers an online fundraising bootcamp on Nov. 4, focusing on optimizing your web site and online donation page, targeted email marketing and using social media;  her advice is always on target.  If you specifically need help with email, take a look at next week’s Boston Email Fundraising Bootcamp, featuring experts such as Idealware‘s Laura Quinn and Firefly Partners‘ Maureen Wallbeoff.  While social media is the hot topic of the moment, email will be with us for a long time and should be a centerpiece of your online strategy.

New Ways to Approach Online Fundraising in Tough Times

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, online giving continued to increase in 2008, but at a slower percentage than in 2007.   M&R Strategic Services reports that while the average online gift has decreased, the number of online donors has gone up, more than making up the difference for most organizations.  And while online donations are still a small piece of total giving for most nonprofits, some such as the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society have raising a significant portion over the Internet.  Some techniques that are most effective:

  • Including deadlines in e-mail appeals
  • Seeking small sums
  • Combining text messages and e-mail appeals
  • Asking corporate sponsors or like-minded charities to send ‘chaperoned’ e-mail messages on an organization’s behalf
  • Using multiple channels, e.g. social networks, video, e-mail, and text messages

Many nonprofits (including mine) raise significant revenues through athletic events, such as walks and endurance type events.  But the Chronicle reports this too is also getting harder, encouraging us to provide lower-cost ways to participate, adding new types of events, encouraging more constituents to actively fundraise, and aggressively seeking more participants.  This article encourages us to stay positive and seek creative approaches to stay afloat.  Helping supporters to raise funds through third party events is sometimes overlooked as a further stimulus to overall fundraising.

More online fundraising tips are available from Alica McKee of Sea Change Strategies at Nonprofit Marketing Guide and the Nonprofit Blog Carnival.

Jakob Nielsen on Non-Profit Web Site Usability

No one knows more about usability than Jakob Nielsen;  he recently tested nonprofit web sites and found that much can be done to optimize online giving.  Major points:

  1. nonprofit web sites are good at attracting new donations but less so in ‘sustaining long term donor relationships’
  2. potential donors primarily want information on the organization’s mission, objectives and work as well as how it uses donations but few nonprofits provide this information prominently on their home page, where many constituents begin (and may end) their research
  3. donations are discouraged by usability problems relating to page /site design and by poor content not optimized for the web

Not to my surprise, Jakob also mentioned how poorly large affiliate based organizations integrate national web sites with local chapter sites, saying that most looked ‘completely different’ from the main web pages.  At my organization, we provide templates to insure some level of consistency, but there still isn’t enough coordination to insure consistency with our national site.

This report shows the value of doing actual user testing, not just asking others in your nonprofit what they think users want.  Don’t wait until you’re ready to do a full web site redesign, which for many of us may not happen very often.  Use inexpensive tools such as 4Q and SurveyMonkey to learn how your web site can be improved.

Jakob’s full report is available here.

New Findings About Online Giving

The recently released donorCentrics™ Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis offers many interesting insights about online giving.   Steve MacLaughlin’s blog offers  a good summary of its major findings.  My comments are below:

  • online giving continued to grow rapidly in 2007 & 2008, even though there were fewer natural disasters which stimulated past years’ contributions – many of us take this for granted, but online giving is still relatively small compared to direct mail giving.
  • online donors give larger gifts than ‘traditional’ donors but have slightly lower retention rates – why are we losing donors’ loyalty?  Is it too easy to opt out of email communications?
  • while online giving is an important source for new donor acquisition, online donors may not be cultivated to their full potential after acquisition – this is an important point;  using a ‘welcome series’ of communications works much better than simply adding someone to an email newsletter list.
  • online donors often migrate to other channels, especially direct mail – I’ve long advocated the value of multichannel marketing, but it’s still interesting to find out that many will start online than give offline.  When I asked long term fundraising expert Michael Johnston recently to predict how much longer direct mail would survive, he confirmed that it would be quite a while yet.
  • direct mail donors rarely give online – so while online donors will go offline, offline donors usually won’t contribute online?  This was a surprise for me.

Twenty-four nonprofit organizations participated in this study, released by Target Analytics.  Interestingly, the headline of a NY Times article summarizing the study read Study Shows First-Time Online Donors Often Do Not Return. Clearly, we’re still figuring out what works but CARE’s Tobias Smith offered an interesting perspective, suggesting that we be “less worried about what channels donors use and offer them a variety of channels through which they can give.”  So if anyone tells you to focus only your efforts online when seeking new constituents, remind them that it’s too early to phase out traditional methods, such as direct mail.  Personally, I rarely pay much attention to direct mail, but many of our supporters still do.

Ways to Boost Online Giving

DonorDigital recently released a report, Perfecting Your Page: Can donation page optimization boost online giving? Apparently the answer is yes.  Report highlights:::

  • Bigger donate buttons help convert more donors
  • Color of donation button can also increase conversion, but not all colors will work well
  • Streamlining donation form by eliminating unneeded fields will increase conversions
  • Politeness gets better results over a forceful call-to-action when reminding constituents why donating is important
  • Using forceful language such as ‘Donate Now!’ doesn’t work better than simply saying ‘Submit.’

Thanks to Amnesty International, which detailed its findings in the report, which can be downloaded free from theDonorDigital site.  They used the firm Optimost to do multivariate testing, where multiple parts of a web page are tested on a live web site.  Although product was expensive, apparently the results in additional donations more than made up for the cost.


ePhilanthropy Ideas from Around the Web

mStoner provides an interesting look at How Donors Use the Internet.  Interestingly, success of a nonprofit’s web site can’t only be judged by the level of online donations, since many visitors will check out an organization online but continue to give offline.

Nonprofit Times reviews a study which discusses the value of email addresses: Get an Email Address, Generate Income, as well as other trends in online giving.

Association of Fundraising Professionals discusses a survey that suggests that Integrated Fundraising Activities (are a) Key to Success and that using a variety of approaches is best, although reminds us that developing relationships and major gifts are still critical components..

Finally, the blog A Small Change suggests that fundraising no longer needs to be restricted by geography in Fundraising Without Borders.

Online Fundraising or Direct Mail? Use Both

Does online fundraising offer a huge opportunity for most nonprofits?  Yes.  Does this mean that the more traditional direct mail methods should no longer be used?  No! Many other bloggers recently discussed this issue:

Chronicle of Philanthropy  - Direct-Mail Appeals Suffer, New Survey Finds

Sea Change Strategies – Mark Rovner - A Little Fundraising Rant

Seth Godin - I Gave at the Office, as well as his latest book, Meatball Sundae

A useful summary of the issue is provided in The Agitator’s Baby and the Bathwater.

I agree with Seth’s point that online fundraising clearly is not meant to replace direct mail fundraising.  Some people may always respond best to direct mail, while others enjoy doing everything online.  The real challenge, as Seth points out, is to convert the donor to an active supporter of an organization’s cause, or who encourages others to get involved.  Whether a donor gives offline or online, getting someone to get and stay engaged has the biggest benefit for our organizations.

New Charitable Gift Survey Yields Surprising Results

In the recently released American Express Charitable Gift Survey, there are some surprising insights about online fundraising.

Through a two week sample of donors in September 2007, the survey analyzed how much people give to charity in single donations and the differences between online and offline donations.  Below are some of its major points (withmy comments in italics):

  • about 2/3 of Americans gave to charity in the past year, but only 6% gave online.  This is much lower than I would have expected, but surely this will continue to grow rapidly.
  • convenience or speed is the top reason for giving online. This is why it’s so important to make the online donation process as simple as possible, e.g. not having too many steps and not asking for too much information.
  • most contributions are below $100, regardless of the method of donation. While many nonprofits focus on major gifts, it’s clear that small donations play a critical role.
  • on average, the online gift is about the same amount as offline gifts. This is the most surprising conclusion.  At most presentations I’ve heard on this topic, online gifts are always described as being higher than offline gifts.
  • the most frequent response for not donating online was not having a computer or Internet access.  This will change as Internet connectivity becomes more universal.
  • although people under 35 are more likely to make online gifts, the greatest share of Internet donors (50%) are between 35 and 54 years old.  This also is a surprise, but the survey explains that more people in this age range give to charity than any other age group.
  • there is little difference between the percentage of men and women giving online, and little difference in the types of charities they support.  This suggests that segmenting constituents by gender may not be helpful in stimulating online giving.

Thanks to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, the Innovative Research Group, American Express Merchant Services, and Ted Hart, founder of the ePhilanthropy Foundation and now head of the Hart Philanthropic Services Group for preparing this insightful report.

Why People Give

Why do people give?  I found these ideas on a blog post entitled Fundraising 101:

  • They believe you are making a difference in a cause they care about.
  • They value your work
  • They see it as an investment
  • They get something in return
  • They feel good about themselves
  • Returning a favor
  • Solving a problem
  • Sending a message
  • Receiving quality information
  • Aligning with peers
  • Bringing justice to the world

To encourage constituents to support our organizations, we need to appeal to one or several of these motivators.  A compelling story with a rationale of why the donation is needed will show better results will always show better results than a general appeal.

Direct Mail or Online Acquisition

In a recent article in Fundraising Success, Karen Taggart of Care2 explores offline vs. online fundraising. Many points seem to point to the benefits of online initiatives:

  • Online campaigns result in higher average gifts
  • Online approaches are particularly effective for emergency / current events related campaigns
  • Online giving is expected to continue to rise
  • Online fundraising is considerably less expensive than offline efforts

But another article by Abny Santicola points out that the most effective strategy is a multi-channel approach, not using just one or the other: “Numerous studies have found donors contacted via multiple channels are more valuable and give larger gifts than single-channel donors do. But analytics and match-back for integrated campaigns can be tricky because it can be hard to demonstrate how communication through one channel affected response via another.”

As I’ve posted previously, I definitely agree that using both channels together is definitely the best solution.  The challenge, however, is to get different parts of an organization working together that are accustomed to working separately.  This will only happen if those who are responsible for online strategies also recognize the benefits of integrating offline campaigns which clearly still have much to offer in raising funds and engaging constituents.