From Buttons to Blogs

From September 2003 to September 2004, IFAW.org drew 1,009,048 unique Web visitors, a 196 percent increase from the same period a year earlier, when the site fetched only 341,229 visitors, according to Kintera.

During the re-launch year of IFAW.org, approximately $241,466 was raised through e-mail efforts, a 54 percent increase compared to the $156,382 generated from September 2002 to September 2003. The organization also reported a 50 percent increase in response rates to e-mail appeals from September 2003 to September 2004, compared to the previous year. Additionally, the average donation increased by 5 percent, from $44 to $46, during the same period.

And while just 5 percent of IFAW’s 300,000 online supporters (responding in 11 different languages) have converted into donors, the average gift is markedly higher than that of direct mail, from $37 to $50 depending on the issue. Contributors to IFAW’s StoptheSealHunt.com — a Web site launched earlier this year by the organization to combat Canadian seal clubbing — are pledging gifts on the order of $51.

IFAW online donors also range in age from 35 to 50 — more than 10 years younger than traditional direct-mail donors. And Koenen notes that the organization has just entered the early stages of creating a special section expressly for young people ages 9 to 15.

“We want to steward them through so they’ll still be taking action and donating when they’re 35 to 40,” Koenen says.

WORKPLACE GIVING JUST GOT VIRAL
United Way enters online-services arena with new suite of ‘eWay’ products.

United Way of America was never known as a cutting-edge, online-services provider. But the national social-services juggernaut, with 1,350 local affiliates, just entered the fray with a turnkey suite of online products for meeting and tracking organizational-level giving and workplace philanthropy.

Called simply United eWay, the robust services line seeks to help local United Ways and corporations manage an online institutional giving campaign from inception to completion, including a mechanism to capture electronic donations, year-round collection, research, reporting and payment of gifts, and a secure facility with more than 25 staff members who collect and process donations (e.g., payroll deduction, credit/debit, check, cash, stock, electronic funds transfer, etc.).