Online Fundraising

A recent study revealed that first gifts online are 1-1 ½ times larger than first gifts by mail, and repeat gifts are also larger.

Online fundraising revenue grew overall by 14% between 2009 and 2010. In the US, 13 per cent of organizations receive at least half of their donations online. In 2007, Heifer International raised more than 28 per cent of its donations online and the United Way of American brought in $257.4 million via the web.

This clearly proves that online fundraising can be successful, but the vast majority of charities are not having success. There is obviously room for improvement in their online fundraising strategies.

Major donors moving online

Although organisations tend to pursue wealthier donors through personal, one-to-one relationships, figures quoted in 2008 stated that 51 per cent of wealthy US donors prefer to give via the internet, and 46 per cent intend to make a greater percentage of their donations online in the next five years.

The 2008 donorCentrics Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis focuses on the integration of online and the wider direct marketing programme. The study found that:

• Online donors are younger and have higher incomes than traditional direct mail donors
• Online donors give larger gifts than donors to more traditional giving channels like direct mail, but they are less loyal in terms of repeat giving
• Higher average gifts mask the lower retention rates of online donors. Simply focussing a little more effort on online retention could have a significant impact on income for these organisations.

The growth of Social Media

Facebook users for nonprofit fan pages grew an average of 14% per month in 2010. On average, nonprofit Facebook fan pages had 15,053 users, defined as people who “Like” a fan page. Converting these fans to donors or advocates is the challenge.

Read about strategies to maximize web user conversion.

For more statistics on online fundraising read the Benchmark Study