Nonprofit Bridge

Nten and M&R Strategic Services have released a fascinating study which provides metrics for online messaging, fundraising and advocacy.  Some highlights and observations:

• open rates (compared to a study in 2006) declined from 21.3% to 17.6%;  click-through rates dropped from 4.9% to 3.6%.  I’ve found that many NPO staff don’t take the time to analyze reports which clearly demonstrate that most constituents who get email are not bothering to open them, fewer are clicking on any included links.
• on the average, constituents are emailed 4 times / month.  Seems like once a week is still too often, making more of a case to use segmentation to target content to selected constituents.
• About 20% of an email list ‘goes bad’ each year due to unsubscribes and other changes in email addresses.  So a nonprofit that wants to grow its list needs to first make up for this loss in numbers first.
• Advocacy mailings consistently show higher response rates than other types of mailings.  How many of these constituents can be effectively converted to other types of engagement?
• $1000+ gifts were only 1% of the total number of donations, yet represented over 20% of online giving revenues.  Major gifts still deserves consistent attention.

Thanks to Holly Ross at Nten, and Sarah Dijulio at M&R  for collaborating on this report and the 21 nonprofit organizations that participated in this analysis; a webinar discussing the study is available.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals recently provided a stimulating appraisal on the state of Online Fundraising in 2008.  For nonprofits that still think this area isn’t as important as the more traditional forms of fundraising, the article points out:

• While online monies are still under 4% of the $300 billion donated annually, the online portion has increased 50% over the last decade.
• More older constituents (those with the resources to give) are getting comfortable online
• Many like to combine offline and online giving – nonprofits will get better results by integrating both types of campaigns
• Social networking is worth looking at, but it’s important to first focus on the basics: an effective website, getting potential and current consitutents to visit (and keep coming back to) your website and using email effectively.

To my surprise, slightly more than half of Americans were still on dial-up Internet access in 2007, so it’s still important to build your web site so a high speed connection is not a must.

For those organizations that are still trying to figure out how to optimize online fundraising – start by realizing that it’s no longer an option and it must be planned together with other development activities.  Give constituents many ways to help your organization (and tell them how their contributions make a difference in supporting your mission).

Years before social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook became popular, the magazine and web site Fast Company started the Company of Friends list, which combined online communications with occasional in person events.  Eventually the group disappeared, apparently out of lack of support and interest.

In the April 2008 issue of the magazine, Fast Company not only apologizes for that decision, but rolled out an entirely new version of their web site which has as many social networking features as I’ve ever seen on a home page.  The new site includes almost all personalized content, access to groups, blogs, contact lists etc.  Is this where the web is going?  Do nonprofits have the resources to develop sites like this?  I just signed up for an account and will report back at a later date.

Google has consolidated many of its available services for nonprofit organizations at Google for Non-Profits, including products such as:

• Gmail, which many nonprofits have found to be a good alternative to having to manage Microsoft Exchange
• Checkout, which is offering online transactions with no processing fees through the end of 2008
• Documents, an option to Microsoft Word which facilitates online document collaboration
• Analytics, which offers easy to understand web statistics and I’ve found to offer most of the functionality of  products such as Webtrends
• Grants, which provides free online advertising for nonprofits – in very generous amounts

These are wonderful products which every nonprofit, whatever its size, should be taking advantage of.  Also take a look at Google Sites, which is a recent addition to Google’s portfolio and provides a lighter version of Microsoft Sharepoint.