"Painless" Fundraising

The promise of social network fundraising was that you could set up a FaceBook or Twitter page, tap into the 100's of millions of Tweeters and Frienders with a link to your website, and watch the donations roll in. But as mentioned in a previous post, the Washington Post reported in April that FaceBook – though good at spreading awareness – was ineffective for fundraising.

But nonprofits are certainly raising funds using the online peer-to-peer ask model. Applications like DonorPages have returned excellent results, especially for clients who guide their supporters with well-planned campaigns and events.

The Ophelia Project & Boys Initiative - Tampa Bay (OPBI) a community initiative focused on girls’ and boys' issues related to bullying and peer aggression, have just recently completed their very successful Match Challenge, part of their annual fund drive. Using DonorPages, along with DonorPerfect Online, OPBI was able to double their previous year's total, and even surpass this year's goal.

How'd they do it? "Painless" fundraising. Cynthia Salas, OPBI's former Director of Developement, explains:

"We had 48 participants, many having 100's of personal contacts in their email accounts, fundraising for OPBI with their own DonorPage. Using DonorPages to invite those contacts to donate online was a time-saver – our board members & staff describe DonorPages as 'painless fundraising.' They appreciate how it helps them raise both money and awareness towards OPBI’s wonderful mission."

Note the bold to 'both money and awareness', because it's a key point that DonorPages is designed first and foremost to raise money. But OPBI also made it easy for their constituents by providing reasons for them to follow up with their contacts:

"We planned our campaign using a timeline, so we updated our DonorPages at certain times. For example, we first emphasized the girl's story, using appropriate colors and photos. Then did the same for the boys. When fundraisers followed-up with contacts, we discovered that DonorPages automatically updated the email groups, removing those who've made a donation. That saved us a lot of time deleting those donors, and kept us from bothering people who had already donated."

You can read the full story here, but what separates general social networking sites from a true Web 2.0 peer-to-peer fundraising application like DonorPages is that it's not enough to remove the "pain" for your constituents who ask for donations on your behalf. You also have to give them the right tools that help them actually close the deal.

Expanding the Giving Pyramid

There's a well-known concept in fundraising called the Giving Pyramid (also known as the Fundraising Pyramid, or the Campaign Pyramid). For those not familiar, this pyramid is a strategy tool that helps plan how your nonprofit will achieve a fundraising goal.

For instance, in the green area of the pyramid above, a yearly strategy might be based on very large principle gifts and bequests ($100k) from a few donors at the top of the pyramid. Then comes more donors adding major gifts ($5k-$100k), followed by even more annual givers ($100-$5000). At the base are the many occasional givers and event participants – those who give from $10-$100 once or twice a year. The gift levels and supporter labels may change, but the concept does not – to forecast where the money is coming from to meet your goal, segment your potential donors into expected levels of giving, based on giving history.

Generally speaking, the top three tiers of this pyramid require traditional development efforts – calling a donor, meeting with them, sending personal emails, letters or mailings. But with the advent of peer-to-peer online social network fundraising, you have the opportunity to recruit your committed supporters from all levels to work for your cause as surrogate fundraisers. And if you give them the proper tools and guidance you can greatly expand the size and base of your pyramid, as illustrated by the red outer areas of the pyramid.

How so? By giving your existing donors, board members, volunteers and staff access to personal fundraising pages, such as DonorPages, you make it so much easier for them to promote your organization, event and cause to their friends, family and peers. DonorPages provides your supporters with a web URL that they can send to everyone in their email contact list. And, because their web page can collect credit card donations, they don't have to bother with paper checks and cash. These features alone make fundraising for your cause more 'painless', and will increase your results.

But the real power and value of personal, peer-to-peer Web 2.0 online fundraising is this: when your committed supporters tell your story to people who know and trust them, a donation is far more likely to be the result. As covered in a previous post, your supporter is the message. In other words, not only are you training your committed supporters to be fundraisers, but each of your supporters will have anywhere from a few dozen to hundreds of personal contacts, all of whom are much more likely influenced by your supporter than by your organization's website. People give to people more than they give to institutions.

This is no pyramid scheme. It works. So I highly encourage you to give your supporters the tools they need to be true fundraisers, working to fund your cause.

Your Supporter is the Message!

From Wikipedia:

"The medium is the message is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a relationship by which the characteristics of the medium influences how the message is perceived."

So according to Mr. McLuhan, if you were reading (or hearing) these very words via newspaper, television, radio, a book, a lecture, email, postal mail, or even a different website, you would perceive and likely respond differently.

This relates to online social networking fundraising how?

FaceBook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 online communities are media. As such, they embed themselves into the messages exchanged by FB'ers and Tweeters. In fact, they actually shape and define the messages, including those from people asking for support for causes or nonprofits. FaceBook's Walls include all kinds of other info, plus ads, links to other users and sites, and comments from friends about anything from sports to politics to family gatherings. And Twitter's 140 character limit has, by necessity, shaped the language Tweeters use. Believe me, I'm not knocking them – I speak as a user and fan of both.

There's a good deal of data now available suggesting that, just because someone forwards a nonprofit-related Tweet or links to a FaceBook Cause, that doesn't necessarily – or even usually – translate into donations. They're both excellent media for getting attention, but too often social capital is all that's donated. In the search-and-click world of online social networks, just passing on the message is often seen as all there is to supporting the cause. That kind of support leads to broader awareness, and not fundraising results.

With a dedicated online peer-to-peer fundraising app like DonorPages, your supporter becomes the message. By making a personal appeal that is the sole focus of their fundraiser page, your supporter can effectively "make the ask" for actual donations, without all the distractions, restrictions and noise of massive social networks. On an individual supporter's dedicated fundraising webpage, your supporter is the message (and not your cause)! And the response is "My friend Bill must really believe in this cause. He took the trouble to make this page, and then email me. I like Bill, so I'm going to support Bill!" And, by extension, your cause.

There's nothing wrong with using the major social media outlets, so long as you understand they effect they have on your supporters ask. But learn from Marshall McLuhan's decades-old insight, and use a dedicated online peer-to-peer fundraising site to get results!

"Everything starts from a dot."

"Everything starts from a dot. "
- Wassily Kandinsky

Kandinsky, the famous early 20th century artist, believed in the spiritual power of his art. Even a single dot, he believed, has tremendous power. One dot, properly placed, can be the anchor point and beginning of a great work of art.

A single dot also has tremendous power to effect change on behalf of nonprofits. In the social network diagram at left, the single yellow dot represents one supporter of a nonprofit. Black dots are everyone he/she knows – family, friends, colleagues, neighbors. The closer the dots are to your supporter, the closer the relationship. And blue lines are the inter-relationships between your supporter and individuals in his/her social network.

The average individual personally knows a maximum of 150 people (although that number may be higher these days due to FaceBook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 social network sites). That's a lot of dots! Say your yellow dot (supporter) reaches out to his/her black dots (network) using an online social network fundraising site. And let's say merely 1 out of every 10 dots donate (actually, DonorPages averages an 11.7% conversion rate, nearly 4 times the average for nonprofit online conversion rates). Your single yellow dot can make your event or campaign results as valuable and impressive as one of Kandinsky's masterworks!

Now let's switch it up. Say the yellow dot is your nonprofit, and the black dots are supporters, donors, volunteers, board members and others in your database. When your black dots, – yellow dots in their own social networks – reach out to all their black dots, your results increase exponentially! Better yet, when supporter's black dots donate online, you get their contact info. So, they become your black dots as well!

Kandinsky was able to recognize the power of a single dot in his paintings. Hopefully, savvy development directors are connecting the dots as well!

Ridin' the curve to fundraising success!

There's a minor controversy regarding an April Washington Post article that states FaceBook was "ineffective for fundraising." From the article: The Facebook application Causes, hugely popular among nonprofit organizations seeking to raise money online, has been largely ineffective in its first two years, trailing direct mail, fundraising events and other more traditional methods of soliciting contributions. Comments on the article included proponents of Causes, claiming that exposure on FaceBook more than made up for the lack of donation results. Others argued the opposite.

Why, after two years and hundreds of millions of FaceBook and Twitter views, aren't nonprofits getting better results using social networks? My theory: Although such sites are spectacular successes as social network sites, they are not social network fundraising sites. Like – you guessed it – DonorPages!

Initially launched around the beginning of 2008, DonorPages has seen explosive growth to date. See for yourself in the chart, which shows a powerful upwards growth rate in actual donations. It's easy to see the spikes when our clients run seasonal events. But the real story is the red line – the Regression Curve. This shows how donations via DonorPages are expected to grow, based on the growth rate of the past year. And that past year – August 2008 through July 2009 – was smack in the middle of a severe economic downturn. Imagine the possibilities as the economy continues improving!

Plus, DonorPages, as a true Web 2.0 online application, allows for integration with DonorPerfect fundraising software, adding the benefit of saving time. There's certainly nothing wrong with increasing exposure, but there's everything right about seeing a direct ROI on your efforts.