New Math For Fundraisers – II

January 27, 2009      Admin

Yesterday I offered a hypothetical New Math for Fundraisers scenario where very committed donors (only the 15% who are self-described missionaries) are matched with an easy-to-use tool (assuming, per Pew Research, that one-third use sites like MySpace or Facebook) to conduct a whopper of a personal fundraising campaign. I further assumed that half the donors who met these two criteria would actually solicit donations from their online friends.

A few readers commented publicly or privately that they thought my assumptions were too rosy. Here’s some pushback.

When you work my math through, I posited that 2.5% of the active donors of my hypothetical nonprofit would participate in my campaign. With that assumption, it yielded about $210 per participating donor.

Too many missionaries? I submit that any nonprofit that is not generating recruiting-level enthusiasm from 15% of its active donors needs to re-think its communications program … or its acquisition strategy.

Too many social net users? OK, Pew says that only 19% of internet users ages 45-54 have social net profiles, 10% of those ages 55-64, and 7% of those ages 65 or older have one. So adjust my scenario to reflect that many current donor files have an older age profile. You still wind up with an extraordinarily successful fundraising campaign.

Too many actual participants? To me, this is the big unknown. But remember, I’m starting with a very select pool — the small group of donors who say they are missionaries for my nonprofit — and I’m asking them to use a tool they are already comfortable with. I’m not just throwing a net out on a social networking site and hoping someone swims into it (more on that tomorrow).

But my most important point: instead of listening to me hypothesize, you can "wet-test" each and every assumption in my scenario in your organization … assuming you have some donors who have shared their email addresses.

Get started … The Agitator would like to award some raises!

Tom

 

 

 

 

3 responses to “New Math For Fundraisers – II”

  1. Willan JOhnson says:
    January 28, 2009 at 1:16 am

    Tom – great posts and discussion, and I look forward to hearing the experiences with your readers. In my experience with a number of the online giving platforms, I think you might have over-estimated in two areas: a) number of friends / contacts that will respond to an invite to participate. You have it at 50%, and I would expect less . My experience is that people will more likely participate if they have a natural affinity to the cause. So, for example I am more than likely to participate if someone asks me to give to an educational charity versus a animal related charity. Second, an average give of $35 is also higher than I have seen. That said, I think there is upside if a personal fundraiser can reach out further (more than 10 contacts) or if the recruits will in return recruit additional fundraisers (more of a viral effect).

  2. Laurel Wirtanen-Siloy says:
    February 3, 2009 at 3:07 pm

    We are implementing myspace, facebook, and making our website more user friendly. I almost completely agree with everything in the article. The comment of having too many “missionaries,” in my opinion you can never have too many people saying that your cause is a good one. Diversification is so critical to all nonprofits- we can’t just focus on one demographic; many NPOs mission can be tailored to multiple groups who would be interested.

    I know of my friends on facebook, they are inclined to make a gift to someone who asks them to do so. Or, as your article indicates, pass it on to a person who they think may be interested.

    I think missionaries kind of know the charities their contacts would support. For instance, I support children and animals and my friends don’t necessarily support both but would one; so I send the appropriate links to the appropriate donors. I would never send my animal charities to my aunt who can’t stand wildlife or dogs.

    On facebook for instance, I am in the animal donor category, and we keep criss-crossing interest groups. It’s incredible how much new information can get passed.

    Great findings and observations!

  3. The Fundraising Payback of Social Media | Social Velocity says:
    February 3, 2009 at 6:09 pm

    […] has some interesting math, but basically the idea is that 2.5% of a donor base could raise $210 each.  So, for an […]

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