Fundraising 2.0

Slide 1:  Fundraising 2.0 workshop Steve Bridger Brussels, 5 June 2007

Slide 2: Agenda 14:00 – 14:20 Introductions and ice-breaker 14:20 – 15:15 Fundraising 2.0 15:15 – 15:30 Stretch your legs 15:30 – 16:30 Game time: focus on online fundraising strategies and tools 16:30 – 17:00 Q & A… but please interrupt / challenge me at any time!

Slide 3: My perspective…

Slide 5: Takeaways from the session  A basic understanding of what we’ve learned in the first 10 years of online fundraising… and the trends, challenges, and opportunities to come  Some shared experiences and learning… for me too!!  An idea or two to implement  Some resources available after the day

Slide 6: Now for some tagging… Please write on both tags… A barrier to effective fundraising in NGOs Something you would like to know more about (online fundraising)

Slide 7:  The first 10 years  5 Trends  10 ideas  Sustainability

Slide 8: The first 10 years... of fundraising online

Slide 9: First… some hard truths

Slide 10: Emotional fundraising Who attracts the most donations?

Slide 11: Donor loyalty is about you being loyal to your donors, not the other way around

Slide 12: People often don’t like the way we communicate with them

Slide 13: Future donors? Current donor

Slide 14: The 21st century donor  Less committed  More access to information  More of a ‘consumer’ – less loyal  More demanding – asking questions that are difficult to answer  More cynical  More comfortable with new media – by 2016, 20-something workforce will never have been without internet

Slide 15: Some milestones…

Slide 16: Asian Tsunami  USA: estimated 65% of $350m donations came from online  UK: world record for most money donated in a 24- hour period – 30th to 31st December 2004; a total of 166,936 donations raising £20.3m (25% through online channels)  Impact Accountability Report one year later

Slide 17: Over £13m taken online in 2005/6 * * includes Oxfam Unwrapped

Slide 19: DEC Appeal for Darfur & Chad  Has raised around £3m since its launch on 24 May  More donated online than by telephone – which has never happened before

Slide 20: What else have we learned?  Income growing: e.g. MSF – 100% year-on-year increase in online credit card gifts (2002-06) – 30% of new regular givers do so online… and give a higher average donation  Small NGOs can do it, too – can ‘punch above their weight’  Email (and email personalisation) has been as important as a website

Slide 21: 5 Trends

Slide 22: Trend #1: Causes not NGOs

Slide 23: Engagement + accountability = retention  People somewhere between totally hands off to deeply engaged, but web No.1 means of giving  Engagement needs to emerge from communication between donor and recipient and should aim to satisfy both parties  We can use social media to help people to get more involved, to give more, and to give in different ways than they have in the past  Generation Y has different ideas about giving than their parents do…  Likely to be less loyal, but may well become loyal to NGOs who connect with them in meaningful ways  63% of the UK's 11.8m 11-25 year olds say they learn about charities generally from their charity shops. Will this change? What about online social networks?

Slide 24: “Are you listening?”

Slide 25: Move towards a 360° giving experience

Slide 26: A two-way street… a dialogue

Slide 27: Trend #2: Earmarked donations  I’ve seen the future and it’s earmarked  Are we seeing the end of the General Fund?

Slide 28: Trend #3: Impact reporting  How to evaluate and effectively demonstrate impact to donors  NGOs will have to get better at explaining how they make a difference to a more sceptical and demanding public  Impact reporting will become the norm  Note: Money does not necessarily = impact

Slide 29: Trend #4: The Rise of Philanthropy  Social entrepreneurs and venture philanthropists will have a higher profile  Micro-philanthropy / micro- donations, e.g. Kiva.org, Omidyar Network, etc.  Inspiration: people like the Grameen Bank’s Muhammud Yanus

Slide 30: Trend #5: the distributed NGO  NGOs will be social networks that group and re-group based on need, mission, geography, etc., using a variety of online collaboration and learning tools  NGOs will find their partners and supporters in all corners of the world  Donors will begin to look for NGOs based on where the need is concentrated

Slide 31: 10 Things to try

Slide 32: #1 Storytelling (with a blog)

Slide 33: What’s your story?

Slide 34: Blogging the impact of giving “I have been a monthly donor to MSF for some time. On Tuesday, I will ramp up by contribution, because I have a house, a job… a garden, rain, food – and hope. “I wish I could give those things to the mother whose baby you tried to save. I cannot, so I will do what I can.” Using blogs to put donors directly in touch with the work they’re supporting

Slide 36: #2 Storytelling (with video)

Slide 38: #3 Personal fundraising (with ‘widgets’)

Slide 40: Justgiving  Growth has been between 1.5 to 2x every year  Recently passed £150m raised  2,500 not-for-profits on the website.  London Marathon (April '07) – 15,000 runners using website; collectively raised < £12.5m

Slide 41: 2007: year of the widget  Give your supporters downloadable ‘widget’ to let them track their fundraising in fun new ways  Justgiving: 18,000 ‘widgets’ have been used generating 9m page impressions (since Dec 2006)  Currently 1,200 live ‘Justgiving’ widgets

Slide 44: Source: Dion Hinchcliffe

Slide 45: #4 Social networks

Slide 46: My prediction at the start of 2007: “One or more of the popular social networking sites will tap into the desire for members to identify with a cause and create a ‘My Causes’ tab”

Slide 52: Social networks are not new… …it’s just easier now to make connections, and join existing ‘conversations’ we would never have known about before.

Slide 53: Thinking about social networks  Ignore the tools… start with outcomes, strategy and the message  If it fits, embrace social networking – “Let a thousand flowers bloom…”  Keep core message simple – e.g. “Make Trade Fair”  Simple actions repeated at scale within a social network produces serendipity  Increase awareness of what others are doing  Post edgiest, most viral content… be useful… be entertaining, and respond quickly  Try to funnel them over to your site to build email list

Slide 54: #5 Events

Slide 55: http://events.breastcancercare.org.uk

Slide 56: #6 Photo sharing

Slide 59: Photo-sharing for €€€

Slide 60: #7 Second Life

Slide 61: Fundraising in Second Life Still only loose change?

Slide 62: #8 RSS (Ready for Some Stories)

Slide 63: RSS for aggregated update reports

Slide 64: #9 Mash-ups

Slide 66: #10 Embrace virtual volunteers (user generated content)

Slide 67: www.yournameontoast.com

Slide 68: Be collaborative…  Recognise that people like to create something which will be seen by many  High levels of engagement may mean access to resources and talents of great value – e.g. for creating content  Nurture dispersed supporters into “cause evangelists”  Let them know their efforts are critical to advancing mission  Offer them guidance

Slide 69: Managing the risks

Slide 70: Don’t embed yourself too deeply into Web 2.0 and forsake the other stuff

Slide 71: Don’t put partners in the field at risk

Slide 72: Caution!  People may seek to build their reputation or associate you with their cause by adding a logo to their video / blog / profile  Be wary of anti-brand videos / spoof ads, e.g. Starbucks  Remember blogs, etc. are persistent – Mentioning people, e.g. celebrities – could be construed as having a relationship with them or endorsement from them. What happens if you fall out?

Slide 73: Manage the risk  A blessing and a curse. Be ready to lose some control – it comes with the territory. You cannot vet who wants to become your ‘friend’  Maintain a blog watch list  Have a strategy in place in case things go wrong  The benefits outweigh the risks – in most cases people have the best of intentions and will respond to a gentle nudge (self-policing?)

Slide 74: A word on… Sustainability

Slide 75: What kind of people are involved with NGOs? A higher than average proportion of ‘Taureans’… who tend to be “hostile to change and will do everything in their power to maintain the security of the status quo” nfpSynergy

Slide 76: Which one is your NGO?

Slide 77: Thinking about Support and Evaluation  Try to blend social tools around colleagues’ current focus and concerns to get buy-in (or risk being ignored!) Read news clips about what is going on  Experiment around ‘no risk’ programme / campaigns objectives  Be a catalyst for online learning. Raise awareness of tools and manage expectations of activists, partners and across divisions through ‘coaching’ workshops  Think up front about what success will look like  Identify and mentor “champions”. Embed expertise in departments. Help them ‘own’ it  Encourage “show and tell” sessions – present own success stories to their own departments

Slide 78: Thinking about tactics  Start where there’s a high chance of success  Take steps to optimise sites (e.g. adopt tagging, increase linkability) so that you are more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches (e.g. Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and video blogs  Passion is addictive (and may attract new recruits)  Be authentic (save the fluff for the annual report)  Keep a constant eye on what works (and what doesn’t). Share

Slide 79: Measure what you can measure  Benchmarks to measure progress towards goals > aligned to strategic goals  But how do you measure engagement? Break it down and attach a value to each activity – Number of trackbacks, links and references – Number of staff trained in use of tools – Adoption rate and participation among staff – Number of policy experts blogging – Number of ‘beachheads’ established in external social / online communities – e.g. Flickr, MySpace, YouTube, etc. – High readership of RSS feeds – Supporter surveys (more awareness and action) – Diversity of contributors – Number of widgets distributed to dispersed supporters  Roll up into a monthly report

Slide 80: Summary:  Embrace innovation  Join the conversation  Identify internal / external ‘champions’  Start small… take baby steps  Sort out your objectives first

Slide 81: Photos courtesy of Flickr under Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tamala/256649571 http://www.flickr.com/photos/garry61/459768741 http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerryfunes/415730491 http://www.flickr.com/photos/beija-flor/203437970 http://www.flickr.com/photos/56354239@N00/103208549 http://www.flickr.com/photos/jubilo/530472437 http://www.flickr.com/photos/eeloy/116344100 http://www.flickr.com/photos/3ric07/71736759 http://www.flickr.com/photos/manuperez/422518092 http://www.flickr.com/photos/pulpolux/239350065 http://www.flickr.com/photos/trippj34/128230566 http://www.flickr.com/photos/anple/403929257 http://www.flickr.com/photos/dhammza/88536167 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbm55/496661061 http://www.flickr.com/photos/orcagirl/262058822 http://www.flickr.com/photos/camera_rwanda/51735020

Slide 82: Je vous remercie de m’écouter Steve Bridger I blog at www.nfp2.co.uk www.nfp2.co.uk/category/giving/ steve@nfp2.co.uk