Going Mainstream?
A couple of days ago, the Chronicle of Philanthropy excitedly announced that online fundraising has gone “mainstream”.
Wow, I thought … can’t wait to see the tsunami of dollars raised.
However, it turned that the Chron was simply echoing findings of others like Blackbaud and Network for Good that online fundraising enjoyed strong year-over-year growth — 13% for 2013 over 2012 according to the Chron’s survey of 100 of the largest US nonprofits. Here’s their report.
Perhaps the more significant comments were that:
1) triple digit growth was a thing of the past (probably because channel shifting has already occurred amongst the online-friendly donors, and now real organic growth in online donations is required to move the needle); and,
2) the median share of online donations against all private donations was just 2% for the groups where the Chron had comparable data.
I guess ‘going mainstream’ actually means a lot of organizations receive online gifts … not that they receive a heap of online gifts or that it’s a significant part of their giving profile.
That got me thinking. By the Chron’s definition, I wonder … is telemarketing-driven giving ‘mainstream’? Is it more or less than 2% of private giving?
And if telemarketing yields a monthly donor who transacts online, is that counted as online giving?
How does your online giving stack up against the 2% median? Do you get more or less from telemarketing?
Tom
2 responses to “Going Mainstream?”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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Thanks for the note of sanity, Tom.This is not the first hyperbolic headline in the trades about this subject. I doubt it will be the last.
Tom, you’ve had some wonderful posts in recent weeks about some great online successes. You’ve pointed out that organizations who invest methodically and strategically in online acquisition (for example via Care2) can indeed acquire new and valuable donors at a reasonable cost if not a profit. A growing number of groups are also finding that social media (Facebook in particular) is gaining traction as a real fundraising tool. SEM also continues to be a tremendous success story for some (albeit far from all) nonprofits. It’s not just about channel shifting but also about many organizations becoming savvy and strategic about how they are indeed reaching *new* donors. I’m frankly puzzled by that 2% number. From my vantage point, the range is more like 6% to 25%+. And double digit growth is indeed still being achieved online by many nonprofits. I’m very glad for your query because I too would like to hear from a wider audience.
Hey folks, what say ye?