In 2014, Blackbaud surveyed 3,000+ nonprofit organizations and released a study on charitable giving. The report showed that overall, charitable giving revenue grew by 4.9% in 2013. Sounds respectable, right?
However, compared to 2012, online giving grew by 13.5%, with the largest amount of growth happening in small nonprofits to the tune of 18.4%. This is the second year that online giving has shown a double-digit growth rate.
Although online giving only accounted for 6.4% of all charitable giving in 2013, it is the fastest growing sector, particularly among faith-based organizations and smaller nonprofits.
What does this mean? Even though tried and true methods of fundraising work and brought in over $10 billion dollars for nonprofits in this study, the power of the internet, smartphones, and an increasingly social media davy donor base is changing the fundraising game, and you need to take notice.
Don’t believe me? Just look at how one nonprofit organization has raised over $80,000 using CauseVox’s peer to peer fundraising platform.
I’ve put together a new GUIDE that’s packed with science-backed nonprofit fundraising methods, resources, strategies, and killer marketing methods.
You should check it out if you want to get more donations and you want to fast-track the entire process.
The Rate of Smartphone Adoption
You’d be hard-pressed to find an inventor in 1900 that would have predicted that even a child could hold all of the world’s cumulative knowledge in the palm of their hand by the first decade of the 21st Century. But, that’s exactly what a smartphone is: a miniature computer that lets you stay connected 24/7, whether you’re at home or on the go.
More and more, millennials and young working professionals are no longer turning to their computer, the radio, or even the TV for entertainment. They’re checking their Facebook feed from their phone, going on SnapChat, browsing Instagram, or reading up on the latest news on Twitter. A person’s attention, the most sought after commodity, is more difficult to maintain than ever before.
According to Nielsen’s 2013 study, the smartphone penetration rate has reached 64 percent in the United States, with 80 percent of new buyers choosing a smartphone as their mobile handset device. This estimate is backed up by the PewResearchCenter, which pegged smartphone adoption at 56% of the American adult population in 2013. However, since then, there have been claims that the US has reached a “smartphone saturation” point and is now seeing a rate of 75% smartphone penetration.
In fact, smartphone adoption is on the rise all over the world. eMarketer recently released a study citing that the number of smartphones worldwide will surpass 2 billion in 2016, which is inline with BusinessInsider’s report that nearly 22% of the world population owned a smartphone in 2013.
Yes, this means that your son or daughter now can play games all the time, have two-way video calls with their friends, and easily capture the moments that matter to them, with interesting photo filters or captions. But, it also that the way in which we receive, spread, and process news has fundamentally shifted as a society.
The Rise of The Social Web
Arguably, the worldwide web has had three major phases. The first being an information consumption phase. During this time, you could check out your friend’s nonprofit website, which was mainly static, get information and click around a few links. It functioned as a glorified brochure that was a small complimentary feature to getting a real brochure in the mail, video tapes, seeing TV ads, or calling up the actual office.
Next, we began to see the rise of search engines, bloggers, and online transactions. Search engines, particularly google, made it easy to connect with organizations that you cared about or to learn more about particular causes.
You might forward an email to your friend, receive an email chain letter, or comment on a particular news story. In addition, you may read or run a personal online blog, which has other readers and has opinions on ongoing events. In fact, as of 2014, 6.7 million people actively blog and 77% of internet users read blogs.
Although online transactions have always been met with a bit of skepticism, everyday internet users were beginning to become accustomed to the idea of purchasing items online, which may have been recommended by a blogger, or that they were searching for on google.
Finally, we’ve entered the day of the social web, where smartphones, online video, high quality websites, and social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are changing up the fundraising game.
Now, an individual doesn’t need a blog, website, or even youtube channel to share the stories and causes that they care about. They can do it with the click of a button from their Facebook account.
According to Digital Insights, As of 2014, Facebook has over 1 billion monthly active mobile users, which is comprised of 75% of adults.
In addition, over 500 million tweets are sent per day with 78% active on mobile devices.
Although a newer social network, Instagram already has over 200 million monthly active users and 20+ Billion photos have been shared on Instagram to date.
Finally, the video viewing and sharing network YouTube, which was founded in 2005, has already amassed over 1 billion users, with 40% of youtube traffic coming from mobile.
As one of the newer social networks, Instagram has only been around since 2010, but represents the beginning of a new trend towards the socialization of the mobile device. In fact, SnapChat, which was founded in 2011, has reportered that users send 700 million photos per day and that Snapchat Stores are viewed 500 million times per day, now with the addition of notable networks like CNN, the Food Network, National Geographic, Yahoo News, and more.
A tidal wave is beginning to form that will change online giving and donor relations as we know it. The question is not if it’s going to happen. The question is how will you respond. Will you surf on the top of the new wave or be drawn beneath its depths?
Infographic Source.
The Success of The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
In 2014, the world witnessed the success of “The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge,” which ended up raising $100 million dollars for the ALS Association, which helps bring awareness to and advocate for patients that have suffered from issues related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The challenge, which turned overnight into a worldwide sensation, was simple. As a Facebook user, you might be nominated by a friend or acquaintance to participate in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Within 24 hours of being nominated, you could either donate $100 to help combat ALS or video tape yourself pouring a bucket of ice water on your head. In many cases, high net worth individuals chose to do both. After participating in the challenge, you would have the chance to nominate up to three other participants who would then need to complete the challenge within 24 hours.
These simple rules and the time-sensitive nature of the challenge turned a small effort to help raise awareness for ALS into a growing snowball. By the end of social media tsunami, there were 2.4 million tagged videos circulating Facebook and celebrities including Bill Gates, Barak Omaba, George W. Bush, Matt Damon, LeBron James, and more that had participated in the movement.
Although there have been criticisms that the challenge focused more on “having fun” than cultivating the habit of lifelong charitable contribution, it’s clear that social media and the internet has completely transformed nonprofit giving behaviors.
While once brochures, physical mail, and personal phone calls were sworn by as effective methods to stay in touch with and engage donors, they are now being replaced by other information channels.
Don’t get me wrong, engaging in direct marketing and outreach is still important. However, when the conversation and communication channels change from one platform to another, you must go where the crowd is to stay relevant in this loud and competitive world. Otherwise, you might find yourself getting left behind.
I’ve put together a new GUIDE that’s packed with science-backed nonprofit fundraising methods, resources, strategies, and killer marketing methods.
You should check it out if you want to get more donations and you want to fast-track the entire process.
How to Stay Up to Date With a Changing World.
In the next few blog posts, we’re going to be covering a few of the newer fundraising techniques that have proven effective, including nonprofit crowdfunding and peer to peer fundraising.
We’re also going to be shining a light on online giving and how your nonprofit can grow it’s following and maintain relationships with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. Finally, we will discuss the importance of online video content and how to adapt your traditional marketing techniques to the changing online landscape.
The best thing about this new fundraising arena is that you don’t need to be a technology savvy superstar to participate! As a cash-strapped nonprofit, the worst thing in the world is to hear that you need to be doing more with the few resources that you do have. Many of the tools and techniques that we are going to cover are free or extremely low cost.
However, taking advantage of them does take a willingness to learn and build a new mental framework about how the world works and where it’s heading. Want to learn more? Be sure to subscribe to the blog here.
