Nonprofit internet strategies phần 10

310 THE FUTURE OF ePHILANTHROPY the ideas of fundraising integration came into their own. For a more detailed exam-ination of truly integrated (offline and online) fundraising, the reader should turn to Chapter 3. The United Way of New York desperately needed funds to provide service in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The United Way of Toronto wanted to help, and it found a way through the Tribute to Heroes Telethon. The telethon was simul-taneously broadcast in Canada as it went to air in the United States. However, Cana-dians couldn’t call the 800 number that would appear on the U.S. broadcast. The United Way of Toronto decided to quickly implement an offline/online solution: 1. Use a Canadian 800 number for Canadians to call in to the United Way of Toronto donation center. 2. When donors called in, the in-bound telephone volunteers would have a computer screen with the United Way of Toronto Web site giving form ready to process the gift. 3. Once the credit card was processed automatically through the Web page, the tele-phone volunteer would ask for the donor’s e-mail address and tell the donor that they could receive an electronic tax receipt attached to their e-mail (in Canada, every donation over $10 must be officially receipted). In 48 hours, the whole system was set up, over 6,000 online gifts were processed totaling more than $500,000 (with an average gift of $81) and the majority of the callers received their tax receipt via e-mail within 24 hours. This was an incredibly elegant integration of offline and online media. But even if the creative and integrated approaches and underlying technology are changing and improving, has the demographic profile of the online donor changed as well? The only rolling study of online giving in one organization has been conducted by Greenpeace Canada: three times over a six-year period. In 1998, 2000, and again in 2002, the organization surveyed, through telephone and e-mail, online donors for those years (see Exhibit 20.4). The results of this rolling study show some broad trends: The predominant position of younger donors in 1998, for this organization, has fallen in importance. Middle-aged donors have begun to give in larger numbers. And finally, older donors, not represented at all in 1998, have become more comfortable and are giving in larger numbers. This is only one study, but an intriguing one. It points to a trend that most non-profit organizations see in online giving—the fact that it’s no longer the domain of young people, but a medium being adopted by older individuals as well. To back up the fact that most organizations are finding more and more older on-line donors, here is another online giving study conducted at the start of 2003 for the relief organization, Doctors Without Borders (or Medcins Sans Frontieres). A total of 900 online donors (out of 3,000 2002 donors) responded to an online survey (see Ex-hibit 20.5). The reader may be a bit surprised by the fact that more than 50 percent of the Doc-tors Without Borders donors are over 50 years old. But the reader shouldn’t be. As September 11, 2001 and Online Fundraising 311 Greenpeace Canada Online Donor Profile 65 60 <35 36-45 46-54 55+ 43 40 36 29 30 26 21 21 20 14 7 8 0 1998 2000 2002 Year EXHIBIT 20.4 The Changing Demographics of Online Donors middle-aged people and seniors adopt online technologies they become more com-fortable with them—perhaps making their first commercial purchases, then philan-thropic ones, and finally telling their peers about this effective way to donate. The Greenpeace and Doctors Without Borders demographic surveys should re-mind the reader that as nonprofit organizations have been testing and improving their use of the Internet, there has been a parallel development in the demographic profile of the online donor. For example, as older donors come online, they demand more sta-ble, more straightforward, less technical interfaces to conduct their business online. Nonprofit organizations, learning more and more about powerful online tools and their potential, listen to the demands from customers and ask vendors to deliver a better online giving product. If it’s true that a more representative sample of different age subsets have been giv-ing online over the last six years, then how many organizations are they giving to? Very few studies can show us. An August 2003 study of online donors conducted by www.canadahelps.org sampled a few hundred nonprofit organizations, ranging from large to small, from health charities to environment groups to battered woman’s shelters. It was a broad and shallow survey of online donors who had given in 2003 (see Exhibit 20.6). The majority of the respondents indicated that they had given online to one or two charities in the past year. How does that compare to direct-mail donors? A 2003 survey of American and Canadian direct-mail donors conducted by Mal Warwick and Associates and The FLA Group, found that direct-mail donors gave on average to 10 or more charities.1 So it seems that the online fundraising space is much less cluttered 312 THE FUTURE OF ePHILANTHROPY Doctors Without Borders Online Donor Profile Age 2002 Percent 18-29 7.3 30-39 17.2 40-49 20.9 50-59 33.3 60-69 13.6 70-79 5.5 80 or older 2.2 EXHIBIT 20.5 Older Donors Are Becoming an Important Source of Online Gifts than the offline direct response world. Online donors generally give to between one and five charities and very few give to more than that. This may change as the medium matures, but for now, there are less charities com-peting online for the loyalties of online donors. It might also be true that online donors aren’t comfortable enough with the medium to give to more than just a few charities. Not only are readers wondering about the demographic composition of the on- line donor, they may also be wondering about their technical capabilities. Exactly what does an online donor understand of the medium—and what kind of connection to the Internet do they have? A description of the average online donor and their attitudes can be best under-stood through a telephone survey conducted by the U.S. fundraising firm, Craver, Matthews, Smith & Company in October of 2001 (733 donors participated). The reader can compare it to a similar Canadian study conducted in 2002.2 Some of the highlights can be seen in the following list: Broadband access Online at least 4 years Online every day Online banking Canada United States % % 71 36 71 73 87 80 70 56 The Future of New Technology Fundraising Charities 1 2-3 4-5 6-10 more than 10 313 Percent 44.2 28.6 16.9 5.2 5.2 EXHIBIT 20.6 Online Donors Still Have Few Divided Loyalties In both studies, it became clear that younger online donors—individuals in their thirties—were the biggest e-bankers, with approximately 31 percent of Internet users aged 30 to 39 using it for this activity. Therefore, online donor surveys indicate a reasonable proportion of individuals with high-speed access (this has greatly increased since the 2001 and 2002 surveys) which means these donors can see content that demands a faster Internet connection. This means that online donors will have less and less problems viewing online video appeals. THE FUTURE OF NEW TECHNOLOGY FUNDRAISING If you retrace the steps offered in Chapters 1, 2, and 13 about ePhilanthropy and fundraising strategies, an organization can gather clues about the most effective and efficient deployment of what new technologies might offer, either tomorrow or even two years from now. Will the Web and e-mail be the future of ePhilanthropy? Yes and no. Some of the elements of ePhilanthropy from the past decade—like e-mail and the Web—will be reinvented in different formats like SMS text messaging via cellular phones and other wireless devices. So let’s take a look at what forward-thinking nonprofit organizations are doing now. It might just give us a window on the future of ePhilanthropy. Wireless Devices In the commercial sector, handheld devices that allow credit cards to be swiped for a product or service is something that car rental companies and others have been using for a number of years. Now, the nonprofit sector is investigating the effectiveness of using wireless devices for donations at events and for public canvassing. 314 THE FUTURE OF ePHILANTHROPY Nonprofit organizations should seek out the financial services vendors that pro-vide these devices and find out how they can be used to raise money. One such vendor is Moneris, which can be found at www.moneris.com or www.monerisusa.com. For Trent University, www.trentuniversity.ca, the rental of a Moneris device al-lowed their fundraisers to process $60,000 on one machine, in one day, at their con-vocation. That is one heck of a good return on a $135.00 investment. Imagine an organization has a special event that includes both silent and live auc-tions. There could be trained volunteers walking around the event. Staff could not only take donations but could make sure other financial transactions like auction purchases are processed immediately. Though costs vary, an organization should expect to pay approximately the following: Credit card transaction fee: Debit transaction fee: Terminal pin pad fee: One-time activation fee: 1.68% (varies slightly) $0.15 / transaction $54.00 (wireless) / month $135.00 In the right location, with the right training, and the right event, a nonprofit could make thousands and thousands of dollars with a wireless device that can process gifts immediately. If more fundraising in the future—whether the first contact is at the mall or elsewhere—will rely on electronic media for future appeals and correspondence, then organizations must see electronic media as the sharp end of the stick in com-munications and stewarding donors. The use of the electronic environment to build a long-lasting relationship will be vital, and Chapter 12 provides an excellent case study about why online relationships have to be properly planned, tested, and supported with both human resources and technology. E-Stewardship New technologies can help improve the efficiencies of capturing the first gift and making sure information about the donor is properly entered into the donor data-base. The twenty-first century will be the century in which we know more about our donors—and can manipulate that data to the benefit of both the donor and the non-profit organization. By using that data in a structured stewardship cycle, nonprofit organizations will be truly taking advantage of new technologies to build better relationships online— and offline. In many ways, creating an online stewardship plan is a way to make communica-tion as efficient as possible—and free up more time for fundraising staff to spend ‘face time’ with as many donors as possible. In the future, a nonprofit organization will want to provide electronic communication to donors in order to do the following: Improve renewal rates, and/or increase (see Chapter 13) their regular gift in com-parison to donors who receive mail and/or phone contact Allow donors to use viral marketing (see Chapter 6) tools to tell friends and fam-ily about the organization they support ... - tailieumienphi.vn