Giving Days Done Right with Major Donors – UCSB

When asked “which giving day do you think had the best planning and preparation?” the University of California Santa Barbara is always at the top of my short list of examples. From the theme, to messaging, to online ambassadors, to email, UC Santa Barbara does giving day as well as any institution.

One of the most impressive aspects of UCSB’s first giving day was in the realm of major gifts – an area that is not traditionally associated with donor participation events like giving days …but then again, times are changing in philanthropy.

UCSB raised approximately $1.5 million before their April 8, 2016 #UCSBGiveDay event. This helped secure an enormous $3.72 million overall. Here is the breakdown:

• $800,000+ was raised for a smart, balanced match and challenge plan. This allowed major donors to see themselves deeply connected to a grassroots campaign as sponsors of matches and challenges. The gamification provided by the matches and challenges also led to UCSB’s best single annual giving day in the school’s history as it was one of many drivers of donor activity throughout the day.
• $600,000+ was raised for large “seed” gifts. These are simply large gifts donors preferred to give prior to the day offline as opposed to making an online gift during the event.
• In addition to the money raised from major donors before the campaign, another donor gave a $1.6 million real estate gift during the event. Because of the large gift protocol UCSB had in place, they were able to use the giving day as additional leverage for locking down and promoting this large gift during the event.

Big giving from major donors during a giving day doesn’t happen by accident. UCSB had success with their large gift donors, because development department leadership made the giving day a priority. The enthusiasm that started at the top with Associate Vice Chancellor Beverly Colgate trickled down through the entire department and energized gift officers to use the giving day as another tactic for engaging and re-engaging their donors and prospects. The results speak for themselves: more money for giving day and major donors who were excited to be part of an exhilarating event.

Major donors were thrilled to be part the highly visible, successful #UCSBGiveDay fundraising event.

Just as a reminder, here is why you want to get the major gifts program involved well before you launch your giving day.

• Because major donors love digital and we want them to be happy:
  • 85 percent of all millionaires use social media, text messaging, and smart phone apps (Fidelity Investments)
  • 55 percent of affluent individuals use mobile pay. That’s compared to 40 percent of the general population and 52 percent for Millennials. (Accenture) That’s right – major donors as a group are more likely than Millennials to pay for a cup of coffee with their iPhone.
• Giving days are a HUGE celebration of an institution and philanthropy. When major donors are at the center of such a vibrant event, they feel good. (That’s why we say giving days offer major donor stewardship opportunities)
• Matches and challenges drive small gift giving. According to The Why Axis, by Uri Gneezy and John List, donors are 20 percent more likely to give when a match is in play.

Majors donors love online giving … big gifts drive small gift activity … digital campaigns offer another point of engagement, cultivation, and solicitation for major donors … the reasons for building major donors into your next giving day are many. Be sure you major gifts team is ready to seize this opportunity.

Justin Ware is the Vice President for Digital Fundraising Strategy at ScaleFunder – a Ruffalo Noel Levitz platform. Justin can be reached via email at justin.ware@scalefunder.com or on LinkedIn by clicking here.

HOW TO Build a Digital Major Gifts Program

I love it when anecdotes plus statistics lead to predictions, which then become real life case studies and finally evidential proof.

In 2012, we first witnessed major donors taking notice of online campaigns when a dozen major gift prospects made their first gifts ever to Florida State University during the school’s inaugural “Great Give.” These were prospects who had never made a gift of any size or type, but felt compelled to do so for the first time during the online giving day micro campaign. (Most gifts were made online in the $500 to $5,000 range with one coming in offline as a $100,000 pledge)

Major gift donors and prospects often give four- and five-figure gifts through ScaleFunder’s crowdfunding and giving day modules without being specifically solicited.

Flash forward to the nearly 900 crowdfunding projects and online giving days ScaleFunder’s team has helped to launch and the refrain is similar in many cases – big gifts come from major donors and prospects, often unsolicited.

But those big gift donors should have been solicited, because we know:

• 85 percent of millionaires use social media, text messaging, AND smartphone applications. (Fidelity Investments study of millionaire investors)
• Online donors have higher household incomes than those who only give offline. (2012 Convio study)
• Online-acquired donors give twice the average size of gift compared with donors acquired via mail. (2012 Blackbaud study)

The statistics tell us the more money a person has, the more likely it is they are engaged online and via social media. Past experience tells us big donors are excited by innovative online giving efforts. For these reasons, digital is quickly becoming a staple of the best major gift programs. With that in mind, here are a few tips for injecting digital energy into your traditional major gifts program:

Train gift officers to be active in the digital space

This is not a mandate that every single gift officer opens and maintains Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts for engaging donors. Instead, find those gift officers who are already active online as well as those who have an interest in increasing their digital footprint for fundraising. Build a training program for the willing gift officers that helps the novices get started and the pros polish their online appearance.

The same goes for your institution’s leadership. For the right donor, having a president or chancellor comment on that donor’s Facebook photo of their granddaughter’s graduation could be monumentally effective at strengthening that donor’s affinity for the institution. Again – provide training for your administration so those opportunities can be identified and leveraged.

Provide digital opportunities for major gift donors

From offering innovative matching and challenge opportunities to branding a giving day theme in the name of a specific donor’s family, online giving campaigns can serve as virtual naming rights for your digitally active major donors and prospects. Whether it’s a giving day theme or a crowdfunding perk, think about how you might build your biggest donors into your online campaigns in visible and meaningful ways.

Create a subgroup of major donor online ambassadors

We’ve seen major donors set up crowdfunding campaigns that have brought in $60,000 in a matter of days. More importantly, those major-donor-led crowdfunding campaigns have identified new major donor prospects through the networks of the major donor ambassadors who launched the campaigns. Which makes perfect sense – major donors often have major donor prospects in their networks (online and offline). Leveraging a major donor’s support as both a donor and recruiter can more than double their impact.

Major donors are proving to us they want to be involved during online campaigns through their actions during those campaigns. On Wednesday January 20, RNL/ScaleFunder’s Vice President of Digital Fundraising Strategy, Justin Ware (that’s me), led a webinar with tips and tactics for building digital into your major gifts program. Click here for the recording, slides, and infographic of that webinar.

Online Ambassadors Influence Major Gift Donor Decisions

We’ve written extensively on both online ambassadors and major gift work. We know, from our clients’ experiences, that the two go hand in hand. A growing mountain of data and studies tells us the same. Now we have more data that helps explain why peer-to-peer is even more important and effective in major gift work than we first assumed.

For those who work in the for-profit world – particularly in retail – you’re probably familiar with the terms “higher-consideration purchases” and “lower-consideration purchases.” Even if you’re not familiar, the definitions are quite simple.

“Higher-consideration” are those purchases where you give more consideration, because they are big purchases. Think of a new car, a home, a college or university choice …something that costs a lot and is fairly permanent and often live-affecting.

“Lower-consideration” …think of a pack of gum or where you’re eating tonight.

It’s not hard to draw the nonprofit parallels and align higher-consideration purchases with major gift work and lower-consideration purchase with the annual fund.

So what does this all have to do with online ambassadors? According to the 2014 Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s study, Word of Mouth has a MUCH higher influence over a person’s higher-consideration decisions than it does for lower-consideration decisions. Which makes sense – do you often call your friends to ask which toothbrush you should buy? Unless you are the most uber of uber social media users, you probably make that call by your lonesome. On the flip side, when you’re in the market for a new set of wheels, you’ll likely have many conversations with friends, family, and co-workers before selecting your new vehicle.

The 2014 Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s study shows us that the bigger the purchase decision, the more word of mouth (and online ambassadors) sways the decision.

Something similar likely applies to fundraising. A $25 gift might be the result of a clever end-of-year email or well-run matching challenge. But the biggest gift a person makes in their lifetime will be the result of many factors. Not the least of which, information a person has gleaned from many years of conversations with their most trusted peers.

And here’s the kicker, that same WOMMA 2014 study found that 1/3 of all word of mouth purchasing influence now takes place online.

Yet another substantial study that, along with the growing heap of real world examples, shows us that a major gift program without a strong online dimension is probably grossly underperforming.

Justin Ware is the Vice President for Digital Fundraising Strategy at ScaleFunder.

The ROI of Investing in Digital for Fundraising

Why should you invest in digital media for fundraising? In short, because you like seeing lots of new donors, high retention, and engaged major gift donors for your organization. But we did say “invest in digital media.” So what is the cost of achieving those attributes of online and social media fundraising? Read on to see the cost and ROI breakdowns on investments in digital media for fundraising work…

New donor acquisition happens when you have inspiring, infectious online events.

For higher ed, the infectious event is a giving day. For most other nonprofits – especially smaller nonprofits – it might be a regional or national event like #GivingTuesday. And what do these events cost?

• 

  Great content, especially creative video, is almost always worth the investment for fundraising.

  For small nonprofits who are just looking to make a splash (less than 100 gifts or $10,000 raised), the cost can be next to nothing (excluding staff time, of course). Schedule three to five emails, coordinate those emails with your social media efforts, consider a mail piece to your most engaged donors, connect with your online ambassadors (or start a small online ambassador program) to spread the asks and content online …all of this can be done in the $0 to $5,000 range for nonprofits.

• For the mid range nonprofits – think regional NPOs, small healthcare organizations, and smaller colleges who are hoping to reach close to 1,000 donors and at least $100,000 during an event – you’re going to want to do most of the same things the small nonprofits do, but on a larger scale. To grab the bigger donor and dollar numbers, you’ll need a more thought out strategy, more well-produced content to share on social media, a bigger and more engaged group of online ambassadors, and more involvement from you major gift program. Between content production, a mail piece, and strategic planning, expect to spend between $25,000 and $50,000 if you’re looking for six figure dollar results and/or four figure donor results.
• For the giants – think large colleges and universities, large healthcare organizations, international aid organizations, animal welfare groups, and environmental NPOs who look at anything under seven figures as failure – real investment is needed. Without naming names, the university behind one of the most successful higher education giving days in history invested north of $300,000 in technology, outside strategic counsel, and other related costs. And they raised nearly $7 million from approximately 5,000 donors.

High retention happens when you are stuck in the minds of your donors throughout the year.

When your organization’s work is burned into the psyche of your donors, they are ready and willing to act on appeals as they arrive in their inbox or their mailbox. And for a growing majority of Americans, one of the best ways to remain stuck in their minds is through good social media strategy. (Yes, the majority of Americans are now active on social media)

Easier said than done? Not necessarily, as long as you’re willing to invest in good content strategy and production.

To do content marketing well requires at least one full time position dedicated to the planning and production of content. If your digital strategy is a larger, more sophisticated effort, this content producer should be part of a team and under a more senior director-level position tasked with managing the overall digital strategy. So, for smaller organizations, think $50,ooo/year with an additional $5,000 to $10,000 for equipment the first year. If yours is a larger organization and you’re not spending at least $100,000 on digital content marketing, you’re probably losing several times that amount in easy-to-grab fundraising opportunities.

Major gift donors are online and at shockingly high rates.

But don’t take my word for it. Instead, check out this 2011 Fidelity Investments study that tells us 85 percent of millionaires use social media with the median age of those social media users set at 56. We’ve written about tactics to engage your highest capacity donors online. Read a couple of those posts here and here.

But for the sake of this post, how much should you invest for digital engagement of major gift donors? First, make sure you have a strategy in place. Typically that involves an outside firm (like BWF_social) and runs from about $15,000 to $50,000 depending on the work done. As part of that strategy, you’ll want to be sure your gift officers are properly trained on using digital media, you’ll need good content to share with your major donor community, and you’ll want to appropriately leverage the online communities of willing major donors. (In other words, you’ll want to build a major donor online ambassador program). Many organizations can do this within the aforementioned $15,000 to $50,000 while some of the larger more sophisticated nonprofits will want to invest six figures+ on a digital strategy for major donors. Of course, since it is for major gift work, it shouldn’t take long for your organization to enjoy a significant return on any smart investment in digital strategy.

Justin Ware is the Director of Interactive Communication at BWF_social where he helps clients build digital media strategies for fundraising success.

Why You Want to Ask Major Donors for Online Challenge Gifts

A common phrase we hear while planning online giving days and discussing major donor involvement for challenges is “We don’t want to ask major donors about giving days, because it will interrupt our solicitation process…”

Fair enough. It makes sense you wouldn’t want to jeopardize a months or years-long solicitation process for a 7-figure gift by asking someone to put up $50,000 for a matching campaign.

Many of your major donors are online and they want to hear about online fundraising camaigns.

But asking for a major donor’s participation in an online celebration of fundraising — which is what good giving days are — shouldn’t be in conflict with the major gift solicitation process. It should be part of the solicitation process. And it can be part of the solicitation process if your development operation has a truly comprehensive digital strategy that guides ALL the work you do (major gifts included).

Before we get to tips for integrating major gift work with online, let’s examine a few reasons why your major gift program probably needs to start leveraging online and social media as soon as possible:

• 85 percent of all millionaires use social media. (Source: 2011 Fidelity Investments study)
• Online donors have higher household incomes than donors who only give offline. (2011 Blackbaud/Convio study)
• Online-acquire donors give twice the size of gifts compared to donors acquired via mail. (Blackbaud/Convio study)

Just this week, BWF_social enjoyed watching a real world example of how big gift donors love great online fundraising. Washington State University (a BWF_social client) launched its #CougsGive125 event on March 26-27. The 36-hour event was an enormous success with more than $300,000 raised, entirely online. Part of that $300,000 came via approximately 30 gifts of $1,000+. These large, $1,000+ gifts were not directly solicited — they simply came in through the #CougsGive125 website. Fortunately, part of the WSU giving day strategy included a “large gift protocol” that involved connecting with the $1,000+ donors by alerting their assigned gift officers to the big online gifts (when applicable) so they could thank the donors and learn more about their gift. This reactive strategy to big donors who love online giving worked, as many of the donors reached were thrilled to have the immediate response.

In addition to the sheer number of big gifts, we were also amazed by:

• The number of donors giving big online gifts who graduated before 1960.
• The number of donors giving big online gifts who never gave to WSU prior to the giving day. (In other words, the #CougsGive125 campaign led to new major donors)

As you can see from the stats and story above, major gift donors — even those in the Baby Boomer generation and older — love online fundraising. So instead of leaving them out of the giving day process to avoid interrupting a process, here are four tips to involve your biggest donors in your big online giving day:

At a minimum, let major donors know the giving day is coming up.

Work with your gift officers and relationship reps so they clearly understand the goals of the giving day. Be sure gift officers are able to answer simple questions such as “how do I make an online gift?” Ask gift officers to share news of the day with their donors and prospects well in advance. Your major gift donors should be the first to know about and clearly understand the goals for the giving day.

Mention challenge opportunities and ask if the donors would be interested in giving a large challenge gift.

This shouldn’t interfere with other asks — it should help gift officers make an ask. Develop challenge opportunities that connect with the donor’s goals. Are you looking for a $1 million gift for a new performance arts building? Do you have a donor who wants to see that building become a reality? Let your donor know you’ll use their $1 million gift to acquire 100 new donors for the performance arts program. This approach should help you secure the gift, not jeopardize it.

Develop a “large gift protocol” for big, unexpected gifts during the giving day.

Establish what amount constitutes a “large gift.” Then develop a coordinated plan for contacting and thanking the donors who give those large gifts. This is something that should take place throughout the year, not just during a giving day. An approach to recognizing large gift online donors will help you steward current major donors and find new major donors. (It did both several times over during WSU’s #CougsGive125)

Perhaps the most important tip? Don’t wait for the giving day to involve your biggest donors online.

Be sure your gift officers are online and social media savvy. This should now be a requirement for the role of gift officer. If they’re not up to speed, provide training. (It’s not hard, it just takes willingness) Build digital events into your major gift program and build a major gift program with a strong digital element. If you’re not using online to engage current and prospective major gift donors, you are leaving a significant number of donors out of your fundraising efforts. With the increasingly competitive major giving environment we now work in, that’s a risk you shouldn’t be willing to take.

Justin Ware is the Director of Interactive Communication at BWF_social. To learn more about how he helps organizations produce digital fundraising plans that include major gift elements, click here.

4 Things You Need to Know About Online Giving Platforms

We’ve seen it happen — a great deal of communication planning, online ambassador work, and major donor involvement takes place, but the organization’s online giving day is a struggle due to not having an solid platform in place to host the giving day and manage gift transactions.

We can’t say it enough — without solid tech, you’re sunk. It doesn’t matter how well you do all the other things (of course, the other things matter, too). Simply put, if donors can’t access or navigate the online giving process, they won’t give.

Fortunately, there are a growing number of competent online giving options and platforms to fit just about any budget. But before you latch on to a vendor, there are a few things to consider. So here is what you should be contemplating as you select a vendor or platform to host an online giving event:

Real time updating of donor and dollar activity

Challenges drive online giving days. The ability to structure a challenge around a certain number of gifts, donors, or dollars given creates excitement and gamifies a campaign. The “we just need 27 more gifts this hour and we’ll receive an additional $25,000!” messaging line is a tried and true trick that is familiar to any of us who listen to public radio. And it works wonders for online giving days, as well. Of course, if your online giving site doesn’t provide for real-time updating – in other words, doesn’t accurately reflect the number of donors and dollars given up to the minute – the donor activity tracking that is required for this type of challenge isn’t possible. If your giving day microsite or homepage doesn’t accurately reflect the acitivity around challenges in a dynamic, real-time way, how are your donors supposed to follow the “game?” And if they can’t follow it, they won’t be enticed to give.

In addition to a dynamic challenge environment, real time updating also allows for real-time stewardship. The record breaking Columbia University giving day team monitored real time giving activity for two things – big gifts and big donors making big gifts. This allowed Columbia to connect the donors with gift officers who could provide real-time thank yous to these most important donors.

Finally, real-time updating allows you to know when there’s a lull in giving activity, so you can insert a new Facebook post, email, or challenge to reignite the giving activity.

User-friendly, image-driven design

You’ve probably read some of the absurd statistics that show how important images are in catching someone’s attention. Some studies suggest the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. If that’s even remotely accurate, you should consider an online giving page that is almost entirely image-driven with the bare minimum in text. And don’t forget, according to a recent Google study, 57 percent of those who watch a video from a nonprofit will eventually make a gift to that nonprofit. Images and videos should always take priority over text on your giving pages and microsites.

The University of Sydney’s “Pave the Way” campaign was successful in part due to it’s image and video-drive landing page.

An easy path to your donor database

This is probably the toughest obstacle for many organizations. Truth be told, you’re almost always going to have to burden your gift processing team with a little extra work after a successful online giving event. Most of the leading platforms don’t come with their own databases or with turnkey data uploading processes for leading databases (Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge, for example). So, you need to be sure whichever platform you choose is able to cooperate with your database in the best way possible and has staff who are willing to work with your gift processing team to make their lives a little easier.

Verify your gateway

Gateways and vendors don’t always get along. Before signing any contracts, verify – in writing – that the vendor can work with your organization’s chosen payment gateway. Don’t just take the sales rep’s word that their platform plays well with your gateway. Verify it. In writing. (As you can probably tell, we’ve had some fairly negative experience with this…)

Again, there’s a lot that goes into a successful giving day. Before you land on a theme for the day, hash out a communication plan, or start talking with major gift donors about the effort, get your technological house in order to ensure your giving day is built on a solid foundation.

Have other questions about your upcoming giving day? BWF_social has planned more than a dozen six- and seven-figure online giving events. To learn more about our services, contact BWF_social’s Justin Ware.

The Ice Bucket Challenge’s Impact on ALS Association’s Year-end Giving

Millions of videos generated a buzz storm of awareness for the ALS Association in 2014 during the Ice Bucket Challenge.

The “Ice Bucket Challenge” led to a $115 million infusion of fundraising support for the ALS Association in late summer 2014. And those robust fundraising numbers are only part of the story.

According to the a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy article, end-of-year fundraising for the ALS Association is up three fold over the numbers from the year prior. In December 2013, the ALS Association processed 9,618 gifts for $1.6 million. In December 2014, those numbers jumped to approximately 44,000 gifts for $4.8 million.

Volunteer and event fundraising was also up in a big way. According to the same article, revenue from the charity’s fundraising walks brought in $32 million in 2014, up from $22 million in 2013.

According to the ALS Association, the reason for the big numbers beyond those raised during the Ice Bucket Challenge, is the buzz and awareness generated for the Association by the Challenge. Also from the Chronicle of Philanthropy article, here is what Lance Slaughter, chief chapter relations and development officer at the ALS Association had to say about communications success driven by the Ice Bucket Challenge…

“No ad campaign, no public relations push, no news coverage, no celebrity endorsement – nothing could have raised the specter of the ALS Association more dramatically than the Ice Bucket Challenge. And the result is much wider, energized, and healthy base of donor support.”

And that is why nearly every nonprofit organization needs a strong digital strategy coupled with well-promoted digital events. Sure, online fundraising events raise a lot of gifts from new donors (that should be reason enough to invest in digital strategy).  But more importantly, online is often the most powerful communication tool a nonprofit has at its disposal. Which is why now is time to invest in this channel appropriately – not just for your annual fund, but for the long-term survival of your organization. Here’s how:

Draft and implement a digital strategy

Email, social media posts, content on your website, location based activity during live events – all of this activity should be purposeful. When a strategy is produced and implemented, when everyone knows why you’re doing social media, it leads to significant boosts in several measurable categories. Dollars raised and donor acquisition are just the tip of the iceberg when a strong and coherent digital strategy is guiding the effort.

Develop an online ambassador program

It’s not just about leveraging your biggest online supporters as volunteer fundraisers – online ambassador programs are at their best when helping to communicate your organization’s message throughout the year. Stories of impact, thank you messages, information about new programs and initiatives – just like a fundraising ask, all of this content reaches a larger audience and is more effective when it is being distributed virally by online ambassadors. Remember, the Ice Bucket Challenge happened because of an unofficial online ambassador’s concept for supporting ALS research.

Invest in the best technology you can afford

Your website is your organization’s most visible (digital) facade … Your online giving form’s ease of use (or lack there of) is often the first impression your organization makes on new donors … Your digital content captures the interest of the world and tells your story to new audiences … Good online infrastructure and technology is not cheap, but can pay for itself quickly. Investment in this area is often something a major gift donor would gladly support (because the companies they own are already having success with digital). Donors expect functional, attractive online properties – don’t disappoint them.

Do the above three things. Do them now and do them well. If you’re not sure where to start, find a partner with experience (there are a growing number of us out there) and make 2015 the year you transformed your organization’s digital presence and positioned it for success in the decades ahead.

Justin Ware is the Director of Interactive Communication at BWF_social, where he helps clients implement digital strategies that lead to successful online fundraising.

 

 

HOW TO Make Content Go Viral with Great Headlines

The key to attracting viewers to your content is, well, mostly just producing good content. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few tricks to help drive eyeballs to your blog posts, videos, and photo galleries. And one of those tricks is all about ingenious headline writing.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Check out this awesome infographic on how Upworthy has become so successful in such a short amount of time. The infographic lays out the thought process behind what constitutes an engaging, eye-catching, traffic-driving headline.

Did you like that infograhic? There’s a lot more where that came from… Check out this list of the 10 best infographics of 2014. But fair warning, this top 10 list is an enormously awesome time suck (and worth every second!)

The Author of this post – Justin Ware is the Director of Interactive Communication at BWF_social where he helps clients develop online and social media strategies.

Creating Targeted Direct (Digital) Marketing for Major Gift Donors

Imagine if you had one tool that could guarantee half your major gift prospects would make a gift?

Direct response is key for donors at all levels. That notion was recently reinforced in this blog post that suggests you keep your biggest givers in the mass marketing program unless they specifically ask to be removed.

But that doesn’t mean your major gift donors and prospects should be receiving the same email and print pieces your annual fund donors receive. Major gift donors deserve the resources necessary for highly targeted direct marketing based on how they support your organization and which components of your work matter most to them.

Fortunately, this targeted approach is easier than ever to accomplish, thanks both to better technology and a better understanding of how to deliver personalized stewardship and solicitation experiences to our donors. As you embark on a more targeted content marketing strategy for your biggest donors, here are a few things to consider:

• First, know your audience. Create content profiles. A content profile is a donor file that is focused on what content the donor shares and interacts with online. It’s a record of the emails they responded to, the Facebook posts they liked, the blog posts they shared — anything that helps you understand what matters to them. As a development operation, you can either track this manually by recording data as you come across it, or work with any number of software programs, such as EverTrue, that capture and organize information from social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. But all the data doesn’t have to come from technology, either. Like most things, the best content profiles are combination of new tech and traditional development work. A content profile can also be informed by the gift officer’s knowledge based on their relationship with the donor. In the end, a content profile is just a richer set of attributes recorded in your donor database.

• Next, dedicate resources to creating beautiful content. 57 percent of people who watch a video eventually go on to make a gift to the nonprofit featured in that video (click here for more stats and the study). Let’s read that again: MORE THAN HALF OF THE PEOPLE WHO WATCH YOUR NONPROFIT’S VIDEO WILL MAKE A GIFT TO YOUR NONPROFIT. Based on that statistic from the very reputable Google, it might make sense that you drop all other expenses until you’ve adequately resourced a video content program. Especially for your major gift donors and prospects. Just imagine, what if you had one tool that would likely lead to half of them making a gift? Video appears to be that tool. Whether thanking, asking, or showing impact, great content is important at all levels of the fundraising game. But especially for your major gift program where one donor can change everything for your organization.
• Train your MGOs to use social media! For a major gift officer, not being active on at least LinkedIn and Twitter is no longer excusable. From Bill Gates, to Elon Musk, to your average millionaire down the street, the more money a person has, the more likely it is they are active on social media. And that trend is only gaining steam. If you’re a major gift officer, ignoring social media is like ignoring the telephone …maybe worse.

It seems that just about every new year in the past half decade has ushered in a new trend in online fundraising. Ambassador programs, online giving days, crowdfunding …in 2015, let’s make it the year nonprofits started using digital communication — and specifically direct marketing through great, targeted content — to engage, cultivate, and steward major gift donors and prospects.

Justin Ware is the Director of Interactive Communication at Bentz Whaley Flessner’s BWF_social practice where he helps clients build online and social media strategies for fundraising.

 

Online = Big Donors: Why Your Major Gift Program Needs Social Media

Online donors…

• Have higher household incomes than offline (mail, primarily) donors.
• Give larger gifts than donors acquired via mail.
• Give more than twice as much over their lifetimes compared with donors acquired via mail.

We know online fundraising is a strong tool for the annual fund. New donor acquisition, especially during ambasssador-led giving days, is staggering when the campaign is done right. But for all that online fundraising does for your annual fund, digital philanthropy is even more effective in your major gift program.

Check out this guest post I recently wrote for EverTrue. In the piece, I provide recommendations for using online and social media to find, engage, and steward major gift donors.

Short story short, don’t pigeonhole online and social media as a small gifts only tool. Just this past week, a single $143,000 gift came in during one of our higher ed client’s giving day. A well-run, well-resourced online strategy can do more for your  major gift program than you ever thought possible.

Justin Ware is the Vice President for Digital Fundraising Strategy at ScaleFunder. ScaleFunder provides innovative digital fundraising tools to help your organization reinvent fundraising 365 days a year.