Online Fundraising Tactics Show Mix of Big Gains and Failures, Survey Says

As more donors every year give online and especially through mobile devices, many charities are still failing to make the most of their digital communications, according to a new study.

In fact, some are backsliding, according to the study released today by fundraising consultants Dunham and Company:

• Fewer organizations sent personalized thank-you emails to donors in the current study than did five years ago; 35 percent failed to send tailored gift acknowledgments, compared with 6 percent of the same charities in a 2013 Dunham report.
• Four in five organizations sent an immediate thank-you email, according to the latest data — but that’s down from the 94 percent that did five years ago.
• Only 64 percent of organizations in the study displayed their email-alert sign-up form on their website where people could see it within 10 seconds. That’s worse than the 76 percent of groups that did so in 2013.

“Charities are relying too heavily on technology to make changes for them rather than relying on marketing techniques,” says Jennifer Abohosh, chief digital strategist for Dunham and Company. Software alone can’t make up for the lack of a coherent donor-stewardship strategy, she suggests.

The study compiled data from 151 charities across the nation; the same organizations were included in the 2013 report. To test responses, researchers signed up online for a newsletter from each nonprofit and also gave two $20 gifts to each group, one using a desktop computer and one using a mobile device.

Improvements in Mobile

Some good news from the report: Charities over all are quickly improving their mobile communications, and mobile sites are often superior to their desktop counterparts.

About 88 percent of donation pages in the study were optimized for mobile devices, compared with only 16 percent five years ago.

Emails from charities were also much more likely to be optimized for mobile: 88 percent, compared with 46 percent in the previous study.

The vast improvement is likely because of a “mobile first” ethic adopted by most web developers these days, along with the mobile-friendly design incorporated into most fundraising software now, says Rick Dunham, the consultancy’s chief executive.

Sites are also providing a more “seamless” experience for users and donors: Fifty-six percent of organizations required donors to make more than one click to make a donation in the current study, compared with 95 percent of charities that made supporters jump through more than one hoop five years ago.

More Gift Suggestions

Among the study’s other findings:

• Charities are still failing to reach out sufficiently to new constituents online: About 84 percent of organizations didn’t deploy a series of communications to welcome new email subscribers, only a slight improvement from the 88 percent that failed to do so in 2013. This is a significant problem for fundraisers, says Dunham.

“It shows a lack of understanding that when someone gives to you the first time, you don’t really have a donor,” he says. “You have to take them on a journey, to introduce them to your organization.”

• Eighty-two percent of donation pages now offer donors an array of possible gift amounts. In the 2013 study, only 22 percent did.
• Fifty-nine percent of charities now offer email subscribers something exclusive, compared with only 16 percent five years ago. But the appeal of what subscribers get in exchange for their email addresses declined, according to the researchers: About 68 percent offered “low-to-no-interest” value to subscribers, up from 59 percent in the 2013 study.

Dunham points to the American Red Cross as an example of a group that offers an exclusive, high-value proposition in exchange for signing up for its emails: It offers alerts about disasters, preparedness tips, and ways to get involved.

Giving supporters something of value, and something in line with the charity’s mission in exchange for their email address is vital to forging a relationship online, says Abohosh. After all, she says, “Nobody wants just another newsletter in their inbox.”