Technology Advances the Way People Give

There is no denying that technology plays an important role in the nonprofit sector. The evolution of technology has helped us strengthen our brand and reach out to our audience in a way that paper could not. It gives us a bigger voice—not to mention, a bigger platform—to project our mission to the world. Technology and all its offerings—email, websites, social media and the list goes on—are highly relied upon for marketing campaigns… at least it is in the U.S., but how about the rest of the world?

Your Public Interest Registry recently released the “2017 Global NGO Online Technology Report,” where they took a diverse group of NGOs and evaluated how these NGOs use online technology. The report included 4,908 NGOs from all over the world, with the highest percentages from the U.S. and India.

Here is a summary of the report’s findings:

• 92 percent of NGOs have a website (78 percent of those websites are compatible with mobile devices).
• Small NGOs have an average of 6,203 subscribers, medium NGOs have an average of 44,768 and large NGOs have an average of 169,338—71 percent regularly send email updates to their subscribers.
• 67 percent accept online donations, which include credit cards (78 percent), PayPal (50 percent), direct debit (42 percent) and digital wallets (6 percent).
• 15 percent regularly send their subscribers texts, of which 40 percent of those organizations accept donations through text.
• 92 percent have a Facebook page; 72 percent have a Twitter profile; 55 percent have a YouTube channel; 51 percent have a LinkedIn profile; 39 percent have an Instagram account; 28 percent have a Google+ account; and 16 percent have a WhatsApp account.
• 32 percent have a social media strategy; 34 percent have paid for advertising on social media; 95 percent agree that social media is effective for online brand awareness; 71 percent agree that social media is effective for online fundraising; and 88 percent agree that social media is effective for creating social change.

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