December 2, 2012 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties is an old hand at online fundraising. But its recent success has been built on its willingness to keep evolving.
Based in the heart of Silicon Valley, it has focused on keeping its tech-savvy donors engaged with the charity over the past few years by adapting its online giving with the times and fueling the competitive spirit of its supporters. Online fundraising is a big source of its revenue: It accounts for 16 percent of all donations, somewhat higher than the typical 10 percent that most nonprofits attract online.
The charity says its online gifts grew 22 percent for its fiscal year ending in June, to $4.6-million, from $3.7-million for fiscal 2011.
Seven years ago, the group started shepherding people through the process of giving online by making the experience feel like they were shopping for food for the food bank, allowing visitors to its Web site to grab pictures of produce or canned goods and put them in a virtual shopping cart.
“We didn’t want them to feel disconnected from our mission,” says Tami Cardenas, the charity’s director of development and marketing. “It was very educational for them. It got them connected to the mission.”
That virtual food drive drove donations, but the charity later heard from donors that they just wanted to give without having to go through the elaborate interactive scheme. The food bank then streamlined the site, and this year did away with the gaming element.
Tapping the competitive spirit of local businesses has been the key to its most recent fundraising success. The charity challenges the 2,000 companies in its region to compete to be the food bank’s best online fundraiser.
Since 2008, those companies have been running holiday-season drives urging employees to give online and to bring food donations to the office “to see who can raise more money in a specific period of time,” Ms. Cardenas says. This year’s goal is $12.4-million.
The food bank opened the 2012 year-end fundraising season with a 48-hour “virtual race,” which was held the week before Thanksgiving. Tech companies competed with each other to encourage donations among their employees. The food bank will put the logos of the two companies that produce the most money on its delivery trucks. The event raised $431,000, up from last year’s tally of $335,000.
“The more you can encourage healthy competition, the more you can raise,” Ms. Cardenas says. “What’s really satisfying to donors is that when they make that gift online, it’s posted to the corporate food drive immediately. There’s that sense of immediate satisfaction.”
The food bank’s fundraisers work with companies to set up their drives and also gives them e-mail appeals, flyers, posters, and cards they can tailor to their needs. Says Ms. Cardenas: “The more competitive, the more engagement.”
