Do you make it easy for donors to give to you online? Do you use email, your website and other electronic technology to reach out to donors? A new study by Convio, Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research will give many nonprofits food for thought in how they can increase major donations through more strategic use of technology.
You can download the study through this webpage (free registration is required). It's a fairly quick read, but contains a wealth (ha!) of information.
The researchers looked at 23 "major nonprofit organizations" and their donors, receiving over 3,400 responses from those they call the "Wired Wealthy" - those who had given at least $1000 cumulatively to an organization in the prior year, and the median gift was $4,500.
The median age of the respondents was 50, and 63% of them were under 55 years old. What I love is that they note that 90% of the respondents make purchases online, 65% read the news online, and 52% if them regularly visit YouTube. So why wouldn't they also give online if they are used to conducting transactions and getting information online?
There seemed to be 3 primary personality groupings for the respondents: the Relationship Seekers (29%) who want to connect emotionally with the cause, All Business (30%) who would visit your website only to donate as they are not looking for the heartstring stories but just a well-run organization, and the Casual Connectors (41%) who are in between the other two and like getting a little of the warm fuzzies and a little of the financials.
On average, 80% of these donors had donated online in the last year. 46% of the respondents said that they are going to increase the donations they make online within the next 5 years, and 51% say they prefer to give online rather than through postal mail. That would make you think "hey, then what's the problem? The donors are finding us, they're giving ... it's all good, right?" Wrong. Because donors might like your cause, but with people spending more and more time online and less time sifting through their mail, if they find it hard to get the information they are looking for from your website, you might fall off their radar as they get frustrated or are just uninspired.
Only 40% of the donors said that the websites of organizations they support were actually inspiring or made them feel connected, and only 48% said that most charities' website are well-designed. This clearly shows some room for improvement to help increase your donations. Make your website clear, organized and easy to find information on what you are doing, how you make an impact and (most importantly!) how someone can give. I know, easier said than done. Few nonprofits can keep a fulltime webmaster around. Remember, though - these donors aren't asking for your website to have whiz-bang things flying around on the page, ultracool music playing in the background and graphics that rival some top European designer's website - they want to be able to easily find out what you are doing and how you are spending their money.
This might be an interesting experiment ... ask a couple friends if they can find three different pieces of information about your organization in just 5 minutes on your website. Pick things that you would want any donor to know about you - find a story that inspires them, find the date of an upcoming fundraiser, and find the page where they can donate. These are three basic things that any visitor to your website really should be able to find in about 30 seconds, but give them 5 minutes. If they can't find the information that quickly, it might be time to get a couple Board members, volunteers or staff members to help in re-organizing your website. This will take some time, and hopefully won't be a drain, but it's sort of like spring cleaning - it can occupy your whole weekend but at the end, your home is more ... homey and organized.
Another topic that was discussed was the use of email by nonprofits. The study quotes marketing guru Seth Godin's book, Permission Marketing, which recommends that any email an organization sends be "anticipated, personal, and relevant." The study respondents indicated that they don't feel that most nonprofits really meet this standard. They get plenty of emails from the nonprofits they support, but a lot goes unread and most of it is not inspiring. This might seem discouraging, but it actually isn't that bad - you can already see the solution, and it actually could result in slightly less work for your organization with higher returns ... fewer email messages with concise stories that demonstrate your organization's impact should have a much stronger impression on these donors.
What information do they want? A majority in each of the personality groups said they would appreciate a tax receipt at the end of the year (71%) and they want to know whether their donation was put to good use. How simple is that? The Relationship Seekers and Casual Connectors also like action alerts and success stories. The study didn't ask what would be an acceptable frequency of getting emails, which would have been interesting to hear.
All in all, the study has some great little nuggets of information and the recommendations at the end are worth looking through to find out how your organization can take advantage of technology to improve your donations and please your supporters.
