Empowering Your Online Fundraisers
Here’s a good overview from Caroline McCarthy at CNET looking at the range of social media platforms — Causes, DonorsChoose, Crowdrise — that routinely enable individuals to become missionaries for causes and charities they believe in.
The article addresses the issue of the ‘stickiness’ of donors who give in this fashion (i.e., in response to personal appeals from friends via the Facebook pages, etc).
One online consultant is quoted as follows:
“My personal philosophy on this whole thing is if you can actually introduce someone to something new, then there’s a possibility that this person will start to think about how they will actually choose the things that they’re passionate about and try to drive toward that … It may not at the beginning seem that this will drive a new person to a particular cause, but it will drive that person to think a little bit about what matters to them and maybe get them driving toward their own cause.”
I hope that’s true, and not just wishful thinking. Stephanie Strom has a good article in today’s NY Times examining the same issue, as well as the fees charged for this intermediary service.
I’m waiting to see the hard data on the persistence and value of these personally-solicited donors.
But meantime, I am totally sold on the value of empowering your existing donors and members to evangelize for your cause in this fashion, as well as through tools you can install on your own website and in your own emails. Even if the donors they attract prove ephemeral, the gifts those newbies do account for is ‘found money’ and — I would argue — for analysis purposes should be credited to the lifetime value of the soliciting donor/member.
Tom
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Behavioral Science Q & A
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Empowering supporters is not only a good way to engage them, but it’s a great way to help meet your organization’s mission. Combining your thoughts with the recent Online Giving Study, it looks like empowering supporters to take actions on your website would be the most effective way to do things. In addition, this way you can own data that intermediaries don’t let you see.