Online Fundraising

5 Proven Online Donor Stewardship Techniques You Can Start Today
January 23, 2017 at 8:00 am

With online donations becoming the go-to way for donors to make contributions, it’s not surprising that donor stewardship should include ways to cultivate relationships online. Online stewardship adds variety to your outreach. By using online stewardship, nonprofits can reach donors on platforms they already use to communicate with friends and relatives. Here are five techniques…

Best Correction Blog Ever—Or, Why You Should Take Your PR Person to Lunch Today
January 4, 2017 at 9:01 am

In a recent blog, I erroneously described Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who have been described as “psychology’s Lennon and McCartney,” as “two Princeton University psychologists.” Actually, only one of the pair worked at Princeton—Kahneman, who has been there since 1993. Tversky was at Stanford University at the time of his death in 1996. This is all background for an interesting email I got last week from Adam Dickter, a public relations guy...

GoFundMe Wants to Become the Most Powerful Force in Philanthropy
January 3, 2017 at 10:57 am

With over 2 million campaign organizers and 25 million donors, the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe has become a major force for helping philanthropic causes go viral. In 2016, GoFundMe reached a major milestone: $3 billion given over its platform, and it says three times as many people year over year. In most cases, the average campaign…

Giving Tuesday and the When Versus Why of Giving
December 28, 2016 at 9:02 am

I like the idea of Giving Tuesday very much—there needs to be a day (actually, more than one) dedicated to giving. That’s why it frustrates me that we are killing it. And not killing it in the sense of "doing very well." "Killing it" in the sense of making it unable to survive. I know…

eBay Launches 'Gifts That Give Back' Initiative for Charities
December 15, 2016 at 8:00 am

We’re used to scouring eBay for scoring deals on designer duds, or for maybe finding that obscure vacuum part. But now the online market behemoth has jumped into the world of charity gifting. Launched on Giving Tuesday, Nov. 29, the eBay for Charity team’s new "Gifts That Give Back initiative" allows charitable organizations to “sell”…

The Art of Suggested Donation Amounts
December 15, 2016 at 8:00 am

How does the size of suggested donations affect charitable contributions? That’s the question researchers from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business set out to answer in a recent study. Oleg Urminsky, associate professor of marketing, and Indranil Goswami, then a doctoral candidate at Booth and now an assistant professor at the University at…

Someone Figured Out How to Use Google AdWords as a Weapon Against Brands (and That's Scary)
December 13, 2016 at 8:00 am

There is a viral campaign going around right now born from the discomfort people have with a certain online news site. This website seems to polarize many people in the U.S. and has been a big player in the recent political arena. The campaign is trying to use the very basic feedback elements of AdWords to hurt the website. That has some scary implications...

Online Charity Benchmark 2016: Compare Your Website
December 13, 2016 at 8:00 am

Ever wondered how your online fundraising is doing? And how that compares to other organizations? Do you need numbers that can help you to set your goals? This online marketing charity benchmark tool will kickstart that process. We have analyzed close to 12 million sessions, looked at more than 40,000 donations and checked out 148,000…

Year-End Giving Is Here—Are You Ready?
December 9, 2016 at 10:48 am

As Black Friday approached, I became very aware that our peak giving season is now here. For my organization, during the last four months of the year, we receive more than 60 percent of our donation revenue. I stopped for a moment the other day during lunch and wondered why giving at the end of the calendar year is so important...