Strengthening Your Online Presence: Now is the Time

A majority of prospective donors will visit a charity’s Web site to learn more before making an initial contribution. A growing number of people will research charities on sites like Charity Navigator or GuideStar before giving. Direct-to-beneficiary giving portals, such as Kiva and DonorsChoose, which give donors unprecedented control over where they direct their gifts, have grown exponentially. At Kiva, a donor can make a microloan directly to a specific person in a developing country. At DonorsChoose, donors can support a specific funding need posted by a public school teacher.

The integrated effect
The value of online marketing should not be measured solely by money raised online. There is increasing proof that online marketing attracts new donors and influences existing offline donors to give more. At the 2007 Convio Client Summit, Jeff Regen, vice president of online marketing and communications at Defenders of Wildlife, shared how the organization uses online advocacy as a way to attract new constituents, and subsequently deploys a multichannel approach using e-mail, direct mail and telemarketing to convert non-donor activists to donors. The cohort of new non-donor activists recruited between January and March 2006 contributed more than $90,000 within 16 months after being exposed to a multichannel fundraising effort. About 78 percent of the donations were ultimately yielded online.

In addition to being a source for new donors and a feeder channel for direct-mail and telemarketing acquisition efforts, online marketing also enhances donor loyalty. Convio’s joint study with the analytics firm StrategicOne in 2006 demonstrated that online engagement enhances the lifetime value of a direct-mail donor through growing both gift frequency and donor retention rates.

Online marketing is emerging as a strong source for new major-donor prospects as well. Defenders of Wildlife has found that about one-third of all new major donors are sourced through their online marketing efforts. The Wired Wealthy research that Convio conducted with Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research confirms that mid-level and major donors are increasingly wired, and online communications can help augment and enhance less frequent personal contact.