Donors Give More to a Charity’s Own Web Site Than Via Big Giving Portals

Charities raise far more money from their own Web sites—or those that prominently bear their name—than they do from social networks like Facebook or from other sites that channel donations to many causes, according to a new study of donor behavior over the past seven years.

The study was conducted by Network for Good, a Bethesda, Md., organization that will send donations to any charity in the United States. Its site—and other online portals—received 66.7 percent less in donations than sites charities created to seek donations on their own.

By examining its database of about 1.9 million donors who have given a total of $381-million to about 70,000 nonprofit organizations from 2003 to 2009, Network for Good found some interesting trends that both confirmed conventional wisdom and offered some new insights.

For example, donors last year gave $257 on average to Web sites prominently bearing a charity’s name, compared with $180 in 2007, Network for Good found when it looked at the sites it runs on behalf of specific charities. By comparison, the average donation on Network for Good’s generic pages seeking gifts to all kinds of causes grew just 23.9 percent to $202 in 2009 from $163 in 2007.

The number of donors who made repeat gifts was considerably higher for charity sites than for the generic portals, the report found. About one in 10 donors on Network for Good’s system gave gifts regularly, with monthly giving the most common.

“Raising funds online is not just about technology,” says Bill Strathmann, Network for Good’s chief executive. “The headline is very much about relationships.”

The study also found that charities don’t always do a good job of following up with donors who give through generic giving portals. At Network for Good, for instance, only half of the charities that received a donation followed up by getting more information from a database that is available to them.

In addition, giving through social networks is based more on a tenuous relationship with the charity, since donors are more likely to give based on a friend’s recommendation than a charity’s, the study’s authors noted.

But the study’s authors urge charities not to give up on the multiple-charity portals. “They are a valuable service to donors, and they’re proliferating. They likely funnel gifts to organizations that wouldn’t have received them otherwise. They also probably serve as an ‘entryway’ or ‘on-ramp’ for people who are new to charitable giving or your cause.”