Today’s New York Times article on first time online donors shows that we don’t know the most rudimentary thing about online donor cultivation. In the words of Tobias Smith, director of online communications at CARE,
“But how you get people to routinely give online is a nut no one has yet cracked.”
The article reported on one aspect of a study released by Blackbaud on the donor centric internet. You can find it here and it is an important article, a moment in time and a fact changing landscape.
Katya Andresen has an important (well of course) overview of the lessons learned, but let me quote her:
I think this is caused by two things: the poor track record of nonprofits in cultivating online donors and the fact that many online donors are reacting to a crisis. We wish more nonprofits would encourage recurring gifts online and that nonprofits were cultivating online donors to their full potential. Since these donors give larger gifts we feel that when proper follow-up and segmentation are put into place, the value of the online donor will far exceed that of other channels.
Joana Breidenbach talks about this piece as well:
As far as my informed guess (based on our data analysis) goes, a main reason for this are the constant feedback loops, which keep one-time donors continuously updated about the projects progress. Everytime the project manager writes in his/her project blog, uploads new photos or videos, donors are informed about this by mail (of course, only if they wish so). Experience Giving, is what Moritz calls it.
In other words, what nonprofits haven’t quite figured out yet, is how to incorporate online fundraising with a fully developed online communication strategy that keeps donors involved in the impact that the organization is making.
How do you keep talking to your donors?
I mean what do you say to them in all those emails you send them?
Let’s return to some lessons learned in the Obama campaign, the most successful online fundraising campaign ever.
First of all, they stopped writing newsletters and focused on email instead. Email were short and always contained three elements:
- They ask the recipient to do one thing that day
- Show what that will accomplish
- Tell you what will happen next.
Keep writing emails. Once or twice a week. In those emails you show, one piece at a time, how the donor makes a difference, how she make an impact. Tom Suddes and Nick Fellers keep saying it: Impact drives Income and not the other way around. Show the impact, and, that is what we presume, the donors will keep coming.
There is much more to Obama’s online campaign. I very much like CV Harquail’s personal story of her interaction with the fundraising drive. Obama’s website made her cry. Read how they managed that. Now, if you can make your visitors cry, I doubt that you will have any problems get repeat donations.
All of this is hard work.
