Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report

Jocelyn Harmon and Geoff Livingston had an interesting discussion this week on the perennial question, Is It Possible to Raise Money with Social Media? As I’ve suggested, Geoff pointed out that while social media can be used for fundraising, its main value is in building a social community that is engaged with your cause. While Facebook Causes has worked for some nonprofits, it doesn’t allow organizations to retain contributors’ contact information for further cultivation efforts. A private, house network may also be a viable option; Geoff offered the example of TuDiabetes.

At this week’s NYC 501 Tech Club meeting, I also gave a short presentation on the recently released Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report, which also analyzes the results of a survey of almost 1,200 nonprofit professionals conducted earlier this year. Search Twitter for #501techNYC for more details on meeting. Nten is also offering a webinar series which explores the State of Social Networking in the Nonprofit Sector 2010.

Another interesting topic is the intersection of Marketing and Fundraising, explored in the Fundraising Well (and also by Steve MacLaughlin in When Marketing and Fundraising Collide). Nancy Schwartz offers four ways that these departments can work better together:

Start at the top. Your management team must support this partnership and establish a structure which facilitates collaboration.
Articulate shared priorities to serve as the core of a common agenda.
Focus on what’s working well in both areas – and do more of it
Share success stories where collaboration has resulted in positive results with constituents.

Finally, has your organization considered mission inspired gifts / gift catalogs? Also see 7 Tips for Successful Online Fundraising.

Please follow NonprofitBridge on Twitter for more.

In the just released 2010 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, small nonprofits showed better email marketing metrics than larger organizations. Statistics also varied based on types of nonprofits, which is consistent with results of the recent Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report. Some highlights:

nonprofits with small email lists (under 100,000 subscribers) had higher open rates, click-through rates and double the email fundraising response rate of medium and large nonprofits. (However, unsubscribe rates were also significantly higher.)
while overall online fundraising grew 4.5%, results varied by segment; for for half of the nonprofits surveyed, 2009 online revenue either remained the same or declined from 2008.
average email message open rate was 14%; surprisingly, email newsletters had a slightly higher open rate than advocacy emails, but advocacy messages had much higher click-through rates and response rates.
environmental and rights organizations had the best click-through rates; international nonprofits had the lowest.
health organizations get a large bulk of their online revenue from event fundraising; international groups show the largest portion of monthly gifts, not surprising since monthly giving has traditionally not been as prevalent in the US as overseas
tribute gifts – as well as online catalogs / symbolic gifts – definitely seem to have more potential to be promoted more prominently
average one-time gift was an amazing $81, with international organizations showing the best results ($136)

There is much useful data here. In addition to downloading the report, see summaries in the Non-Profit Marketing and Frogloop blogs, and also review Convio’s Online Nonprofit Benchmarks Study. Thanks to M&R and Nten for sponsoring this study.