by Karlo Marcelo
December 20, 2010
It’s that time of the year – snow, shopping and solicitations. The end of the year signals not just the holiday season, but the chance for retailers to make it into the black. The same goes for charities and non-profits that are using every method to reach potential donors, whether it is direct mail, text, online (paid ads, social networks and red “donate” buttons) and the time-tested in-person solicitation. You may have heard that the famous bell ringers and red kettles of the Salvation Army have seen donations drop this year; there’s even talk to extend the 100-year campaign. In part, online donations may be taking some of the share because of its convenience, which donors mentioned as the number one reason they donate online in a 2007 study by Network for Good. All this despite the fact that internet and mobile phone users are bombarded with messages in their inboxes, in blog posts, on Facebook, Twitter and more.
The 2010 Civic Health Assessment found that women, older adults and veterans are some of the demographics most likely to give, though online giving skews younger according to an older study done by Blackbaud. And whether or not donors give online or offline, 40% go online to gain awareness and knowledge about their chosen charity. Donating online is big business for the companies who provide the tools and also for the charities and non-profits that rely on the Internet to reach a broad audience. Online giving is rising and falling: in a survey conducted by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, online giving rose 5% in 2009 and the top social media tool used by charities for fundraising was Facebook. The average online donation was around $80 in 2009, lower than the previous year, which meant that overall money raised dipped in 2009. That isn’t dissuading fundraisers, however.
In the first foray into mobile giving in 2007, 5 non-profits raised $300,000 and one projection puts future mobile giving figures at $15 billion by 2017. The text-to-give campaign for Haiti after the earthquake hit in January of this year raised over $50 million. Prior to this flood of text donations, $1 million had been raised, and it seems that now all charities are reaching for text campaigns as part of their fundraising strategy.
Recently, Alicia Keys raised $1 million to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa through an organization called Buylife. The campaign used a creative campaign, “Digital Death,” wherein a group of celebrities – including Katie Holmes, Usher and Serena Williams – promised to not post any social media updates until the target fundraising goal was reached. In addition to giving on the Buylife website, smartphone barcodes and text donations were employed. While the campaign reached its target, it was a generous $500,000 donation of an American billionaire that propelled the campaign to success. Moreover, Millennials, the heaviest users of social media (although not necessarily Twitter), won’t just jump at the opportunity to give digitally unless there is an “opportunity to connect with leadership and have a voice in an organization’s direction”, according to a report on Millennial donors conducted by Achieve and Johnson Grossnickle Associates. Where Buylife fell short, was that it didn’t ask for donors to get involved, it just asked for money. Celebrities are great at making their fans aware of causes, but to get people to activate and volunteer and donate, they’ll need an engagement strategy that includes the voices of their fans.
We won’t have the online giving numbers for 2010 until mid-2011, but anecdotally, it seems that online solicitations are continuing apace. Do online donors at risk of burn-out due to over solicitation through technology? Or will technology provide new ways to give more small amounts and engage donors?
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Piece contributed by NCoC.net commentator Karlo Barrios Marcelo, CEO of Karlo Marcelo Consulting, LLC.