New Ways to Approach Online Fundraising in Tough Times

Posted on May 8, 2009 by Norman Reiss

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.

More Ideas on Fundraising During a Recession

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Norman Reiss

The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently offered these 10 tips:

Don’t treat giving as a financial transaction – instead, treat donors as you would friends or family that are going through hard times. Give them a way to stay involved, even if they are unable to make the level of donation they have in the past.
Keep close ties to donors – remember to thank donors frequently and don’t treat every contact as a solicitation. Don’t just send an autoreply – make it personal!
Offer matching grants – to give donors a way to make even a smaller than normal contribution more meaningful
Ask donors to give monthly – include as an option on all of your fundraising campaigns
Look for ways to save money on fund raising – this is the ideal time to accelerate the move from direct mail to online to reduce costs. Also use web conferencing to reduce staff travel. Focus on special events that produce the most revenue.
Seek alternatives to soliciting private donations – for example, can you rent part of your space for outside meetings or offer mission-related products?
Collaborate to raise money – try joint initiatives with other organizations with compatible missions
Scale back ambitious campaigns, but don’t give up on them – change the goal or lengthen the timeframe
Avoid emergency solicitations – don’t let it get to this point – donors won’t want to recommit if your organization seems in danger of failing
Shore up relations with grant makers – foundations and government agencies may still be able to help in 2009.

The Chronicle also reports that some nonprofits are reporting that more people are giving, even if the average gift is less. This has been confirmed in many recent studies referenced in this Care2 post about the prospects for online fundraising. Even in hard times, donors will still give. Stay as positive as you can when planning your fundraising campaigns this year.

Online Fundraising Strategies for Tough Times

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Norman Reiss

Reminder: Thursday evening, January 8, I will moderate a panel discussion at the NYC Foundation Center, Online Fundraising Strategies for Tough Times. Guest speakers will include Allan Pressel of Charity Finders and Cristine Cronin of NY Charities. Due to a large number of registrations, the Foundation Center has closed registration, so unfortunately you won’t be able to attend unless you’ve already signed up. However, I will offer a follow-up webinar on Wednesday evening, January 21 on ephilanthropy strategies. Watch for details in my next post.

Addendum 4-21-09
If you were unable to attend this event, you can now listen online at the Foundation Center’s events archive.

Upcoming Program at Foundation Center in NYC

Posted on December 17, 2008 by Norman Reiss

On Thursday, January 8, 2009, from 5:30 – 7:30 PM EST, I will be moderating a program at the NYC Foundation Center, Online Fundraising Strategies for Tough Times. My speakers will include Cristine Cronin, President of NY Charities and Allan Pressel, CEO/Founder of Charity Finders. We will discuss ways to continue to fundraise effectively during tough economic times using online techniques. Our target audience will be mostly small to mid sized nonprofits that already have a web site, but want to raise more money onlne.

Attendance is free, but early sign up is encouraged. Thanks to Charlotte Dion, Director of Foundation Center’s NY Library / Learning Center, for helping to arrange this program.

Meantime, here’s an interesting portal prepared by Nonprofit Consulting which links to a presentation and other resources on the topic we’ll be discussing next month. Also see some Online Fundraising Myths.

Hope to see you at the Foundation Center.

Next Week’s Presentation at Convio Summit

Posted on November 14, 2008 by Norman Reiss

For several months, I’ve been managing an implementation to Convio at my current organization first for TeamRaiser and then for other events, donation forms, and email marketing. To support our nationwide chapter structure, we’ve also decided to use Convio’s MultiCenter, which will allow each chapter to view and communicate with its own constituents. Next week I’ll be speaking about this project at the Convio Summit, joining representatives from other nonprofit organizations and vendors.

How can your organization successfully manage a transition to a new online vendor? See my previous post on Tips for Working With an Online Vendor.

For more on my presentation, view the event schedule – my session is From Concept to Finish Line — Getting Results with TeamRaiser™ on Tue, Nov. 18 at 2 PM CST.

More ePhilanthropy Ideas from Around the Web

Posted on July 17, 2008 by Norman Reiss

Guidestar summarizes recent Giving USA online fundraising survey:

while Internet giving is widely used, it still represents a small portion (under 5%) of overall fundraising
most common way organizations raise money over the web is through an online donation page
best results come from organizations that combine an online donation page with email appeals

Overall, social networking tools aren’t contributing much – yet, but an organization that utilizes online ‘communities’ is likely to improve results.

Care2′s FrogLoop blog interviews Phillip Artez, President of Artez on how to choose an eCRM. Phillip says that successful nonprofit fundraisers “aren’t afraid to share brand, content and promotion with their supporters” and reminds us that a large portion of funds will come from a small group of fundraisers so we should “treat them differently.” He mentions three areas where nonprofits should especially pay attention to: potential of social networking sites such as Facebook, donations originating from mobile devices and more organizations utilizing SalesForce (which has excellent connectivity to other systems and provides up to 10 free licenses to nonprofits).

Finally, the Nonprofit Times explains the importance of using multiple channels since many donors will visit the web before making a donation - even if it’s offline and, surprisingly, even more so for constituents 65 and older. PerDonordigital‘s Nick Allen, “more people are online, more people are doing research online, checking out charities they support or are thinking about supporting.” But NPAdvisor‘s expert Rick Christ warns that “nonprofit’s Web site should try to support direct mail, but not replace it.” and that direct mail is still how many first hear about a nonprofit. Convio‘s Vinay Bhagat adds that while blogs and social networking are getting more attention, the core web site is still the main way constituents will evaluate a nonprofit.

Many contributors to the Nonprofit Times article, including Nten‘s Holly Ross stressed the importance of integrating the web site with email appeals.

Online Fundraising over $10 Billion in 2007

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Norman Reiss

Ted Hart provides a look at how online fundraising has grown from $0 in 1999 to $10.44 billion in 2007. A graph and brief write-up is available at Slideshare.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently pointed out that while online giving still represents a small part of most nonprofits’ fundraising, for some charities they have become a major source of revenue, These five organizations have done especially well, raising at least 10% of their donations online: Heifer International (28%), Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (27%), Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund (21%), National Multiple Sclerosis Society (15%) and Make-A-Wish Foundation (10%).

Are you waiting for ephilanthropy tools to work perfectly before taking the plunge? If so, read Vin Crosbie’s take on Ted’s People to People Fundraising site on why tools are ‘good enough‘ to use now.

2008 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study

Posted on April 25, 2008 by Norman Reiss

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.

Online Fundraising or Direct Mail? Use Both

Posted on January 21, 2008 by Norman Reiss

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.

Nonprofit Bridge

Bridging Technology, Communications & Development to Implement ePhilanthropy for Nonprofit Organizations

Tag Archives: online fundraising