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3 Digital Fundraising Trends For The Year Ahead

Forbes Nonprofit Council

Dale Bannon serves as the National Community Relations and Development Secretary for The Salvation Army.

More than two decades ago, the newspaper industry arrived at a crossroads. With the rise of the internet, editors and publishers faced a dilemma of how to transition from a print-based industry to a digital future. At stake were the critical aspects of their profession: how to reach their audience effectively online and how to reposition the business model from print to digital ads. Today, many titles are still grappling with that transition, and it has hit local news particularly hard. But the evolution of the industry reminds me of the state of nonprofit fundraising.

After relying for decades on direct mail and printed pieces, digital fundraising is the future (and it has been for some time). But despite the fact that donors and potential donors seem to always be on their laptops, phones and other devices, digital fundraising doesn’t reach the levels one would expect. In fact, recent figures from the Blackbaud Institute show that while year-over-year online giving increased by 9%, online fundraising only accounts for 12% of all charitable donations.

The reasons for that are varied—most large gifts, for example, aren’t made digitally—but of course, giving across the board is challenged. During the pandemic, we saw huge public support for people in need, but those numbers have returned to pre-pandemic levels. As a result, it’s time to sharpen your strategy for the future. Here are my top three ideas for how to maximize digital giving without abandoning direct mail pieces.

Know your donor base (inside and out).

We all know what it’s like to be bombarded each day with requests to give. We receive solicitations online, over email, in the mail, on television, at the grocery store and even at our front door. We also know that it’s much easier to ignore an email or pop-up than an in-person request (the Girl Scout cookie table outside my favorite Wal-Mart is a welcome sight indeed).

To break through the noise online, nonprofits must use smart tactics to help inform which interactions are most likely to result in donations from their target audience. (When connecting to our Salvation Army donors, I've found that email is king.) This includes understanding as much as possible about your donor’s habits and interests.

For example, we do this by conducting donor feedback surveys that provide insights into individual preferences, motivations and concerns. In addition, we've also been successful in learning more about our donors by implementing testing on our website to compare the effectiveness of different donation page designs and personalizing website content based on previous web behavior. It helps us know, for instance, which donors are primarily interested in supporting our feeding programs and which donors might prefer to give only once a year or become sustaining donors (those who make a monthly or annual gift automatically).

It is very important, though, to ensure that donor privacy is respected throughout the process and that ethical data management practices are in place.

Don’t abandon direct mail—help it evolve.

In all the competition to earn and keep donors, it’s easy to overlook the fact that people want to give to organizations that speak to their interests and priorities. Our job is to make giving as easy as possible for the donor and demonstrate the security of their data. That’s why we can’t overlook one of a nonprofit’s greatest assets: mail-appeal donors and data. It’s true that donors still respond well to direct mail—one study showed that 70% of potential donors believed that direct mail was more personal than digital communications.

The best way to convert existing donors to digital donors is to provide a clear incentive to do so, particularly with older donors who may feel less comfortable with technology—just as many brands are incentivizing customers to move from traditional forms of buying goods or paying bills. Nonprofits can begin to add URLs to donor solicitations and capture emails (one of the best ways to communicate with your donor base). As part of the appeal, nonprofits can stress the ease of payment along with the fact that digital giving actually saves nonprofits money—dollars that can be directed back to programs. The added bonus for a nonprofit is clear: After a donor provides their email address, they can be more easily converted to sustaining donors. That is literally the gift that keeps on giving.

Use mobile to your advantage.

Without question, nonprofits must meet donors where they are. And the best way to gain and keep donors is to make it easy for them to donate in the first place. Enter mobile phones.

According to statistics, more than 85% of Americans own a smartphone and, on average, they use their devices nearly 5.5 hours a day and check them approximately once every 10 minutes. So it’s no surprise that smartphones are the next frontier for nonprofits, but they must be implemented in a way that complements ongoing efforts.

To tap into this "trend," we launched an annual campaign, called Kettle Pay, to help recreate the simplicity of dropping cash into a red kettle. We know that foot traffic is down at most shopping centers and shoppers carry less cash. So the campaign allows donors to "tap" their phones using Kettle Pay (which works with Apple Pay, Google Pay or Venmo). They can also scan a QR code to donate securely and conveniently.

Our internal data also shows that more users now visit our national website on their mobile phones than on any other platform. To capitalize on that, we strive to optimize our website for mobile users by improving content display, responsiveness and loading speed.

Nonprofits need to capitalize on digital and mobile platforms now to establish their presence for future donors. Don’t believe me? Just ask any newspaper editor from 20 years ago.


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