The Five Pillars of Online Fundraising
CanadaHelps Webinar – October 2009
PILLAR 1.0 – DON’T FORGET TO ASK
Optimize your Donate Now button on your site – place it where donors will find it
Encourage monthly donations – more online donors are choosing monthly giving
Where are your donors? Find out where they are and build a relationship from there.
PILLAR 2.0 – GET DATA, MAKE MISTAKES
Do your research – play and have fun with various online tools before committing
Try tools out with test accounts, or see what other are doing
Most tools online allow you to collect lots of data about users and usage patterns – test,
experiment, and use the data to build a case to convince others to buy-in to an online
strategy
PILLAR 3.0 – STEAL FROM GOLIATH
Learn from others, subscribe to sites you think are good – you don’t need to come up with
all the ideas yourself
Online, everyone looks the same size – play to your strengths: smaller organizations can
often be faster and more nimble than big ones, and that means responsiveness and fresh
content which is critical in online communications
PILLAR 4.0 – BUILD A CAMPAIGN
Get the fundamentals right – do you have strong brand and communications messaging?
Do you know who your audience is? How are you speaking to them? What do they want to
hear?
What’s your story? Tell stories using multiple forms of media, and focus on outcomes and
impact (not outputs)
Keep it fresh and simple – online content needs to be changed more frequently
Social networking is the basis for strong peer-to-peer fundraising and communications –
this renews the essential components of building a community (the fundamental work of
almost any nonprofit)
PILLAR 5.0 – LET GO
Keep your messaging strong and consistent
Build relationships, engage in dialogue
Stop thinking about offline as distinct from online
People will always talk about you, whether online or off – you can’t control them, but you
can engage them
Review or download the presentation slides here: http://www.slideshare.net/MyCharityConnects/canada-
helps-owen-charters-five-pillars-of-internet-fundraising

Resources:
Websites & Resources
www.mycharityconnects.org – CanadaHelps’ resource centre for charities
www.vimeo.com/canadahelps – step-by-step demos about Web 2.0 tools, past
webinars , recordings from the MyCharityConnects Conference workshops
www.slideshare.net/mycharityconnects – a collection of all our slides from past
presentations and workshops
www.canadahelps.org – If your charity isn’t already registered with CanadaHelps to
receive a free Donate Now button, weekly bank deposits, and more, don’t forget to sign
up today.
http://www.google.com/analytics/ - Google Analytics are a powerful way of viewing
what’s happening on your site beyond simply counting visitors
http://www.google.com/alerts -Google Alerts let you stay on top of what’s happening
on the web related to any key word, such as your organization name
www.flickr.com – photo sharing website
www.picasa.google.com – photo sharing website
Books
Don't Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug
Get to the top on Google by David Viney (Search Engine Optimization)
Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
Social Media Tools
www.blogger.com – Free blogging site
E-mail newsletter tools:
o www.convio.com
o www.imninc.com – imakenews
o www.icontact.com
o www.constantcontact.com
o www.verticalresponse.com
o www.cvent.com
Articles
www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/obama-finance - ‘The Amazing Money Machine’ in
The Atlantic Monthly about Obama’s social media fundraising