queer ideas

How to raise $65,000 in a day without spending a penny. Like a boss

Reddit.com is a social news website where users (called redditors) submit content. Other redditors then give each post an upvote or a downvote depending whether they like it or not.

A post with plenty of upvotes will find itself on the front page where thousands of people get the chance to see it.

Redditors aren't the type of people that you would normally see on many charity lists. The audience profile shows the average user is likely to be male, under 25 and browsing whilst at school.

But that didn't stop them from giving when a two line post appeared on Reddit, accompanied by this picture…

"Meet Omari. Two days ago he returned from the hospital after being hacked in the face by a machete defending an orphanage of 35 children by himself. Think we could raise the $2,000 need for the remainder of the cement/barbed wire to keep both him and the children safe?"

Omari is the son of the female carer who looks after the Faraja Orphanage in Ngong, Kenya.

The Orphanage had been broken into a few times and Omari was expecting another burglary. He woke in the night to hear some men trying to get through the door. As soon as the door opened he threw a hammer at the first person he saw and chased three thieves away.

The next night they returned for revenge and though he put up a fight, Omari was outnumbered, hit in the face with a machete and woke up in hospital.

It was clear that the attacks would continue until the wooden fence protecting the orphanage and the small vegetable garden could be replaced with a high wall and barbed wire.

There were few donors to ask for help, so this simple appeal went out on Reddit. No branding. No case for support. No registered charity number. No celebrity involvement. No simple, one click donation form. Gifts were received by the US based Longonot Education Initiative.

Within a day, $65,000 had been donated (a few hours later the total had risen to $79,000). The wall could be built many times over. But Redditors still carried on giving.

So why did this appeal work so well?

First off, Reddit is a community. When members vote on which posts they like, the people who put the posts up receive karma (or lose it on downvotes). The higher your karma, the more trust and kudos you get in the community. In short, redditors (to varying degrees) care about what other redditors think of them (just like the rest of us!).

Take a look at the comment stream and you'll see hundreds of redditors talking about their gifts. How much they gave and why. 

One gift of $10,000 was given by Weebly (who happen to host the Longonot Education Initiative's website). The result was an outpouring of love for the company on Reddit and Weebly's Facebook page – accompanied by offers of new business.

Second, it was authentic. A number of redditors questioned if the appeal was genuine. Within a few minutes, posts had begun appearing from other redditors who either knew of, or had undertaken research into, the organisation.

Third, it was a story people (particularly redditors) could relate to – one man trying to protect an orphanage from a group of thugs. He was a hero and people could show their support and actually become part of the narrative by donating.

But it didn't stop there. In addition to gifts, redditors also offered their time and skills. Within a few hours, this had grown into a new group called Redditors Without Borders where hydrologists, web designers, medics, journalists and a whole host of different people with different skills volunteered to help out the Faraga project and others.

Finally, donors were connected to the cause with rapid feedback. As the gifts came in, the story unfolded online. The wall was going to be built but so much more could be achieved – the school could employ two security guards to protect the children and Omari. And it was going to be done tonight!

A second photograph soon appeared with Omari thanking donors and before long a second post appeared detailing what else was happening as a result of redditors' generosity.

I think this is a fantastic example of effective fundraising which offers five important lessons to those of us working for more established charities on how we can improve our appeals..

• Make the content appropriate for the audience. Feature work in your appeals that donors are interested in funding. Remember that this isn't always work that your organisation deems the most important.
• Move quickly. If something happens and you need help or you think your donors want to help, get in touch as quickly as you can.
• Real beats designed. In my experience authenticity always wins – photographs with a few lines written on the back are better than those reproduced in a leaflet. Hand written is better than the organisational font.
• Show donors what they have done with specific feedback on the projects you have featured (not the general work the charity has done).
• Let your donors show off. Give your supporters the chance to show others what they have done. This can be something as simple as a sticker enclosed in a mailing pack or a recognition flash on an online profile.

And not surprisingly, whilst I've been writing the story is continuing to unfold on Reddit (it has even made it to the Huffington Post). If you'd like to become part of it you can make your gift here.

How did giving to Haiti compare to previous emergencies?

CAF have recently updated their disaster monitor research which looks at long-term patterns of giving to emergency appeals. All figures are for the UK.

The key findings are:

• Just under half of people surveyed gave to Haiti (in comparison to 81% of people who gave to the 2004 tsunami appeal).
• Women were most generous (51% gave compared to just 44% of men).
• People aged 35-44 were most likely to give (in comparison with those aged 25-34 for the tsunami appeal).
• People in Northern Ireland were most likely to give (those in the North of England were least likely).

Where the research gets interesting is when it analyses what motivated donors and how they actually gave. There has been a fair amount of comment on the importance of social media such as Twitter and Facebook in generating funds and awareness of the disaster. But this research shows the continuing power of traditional media in driving donations – 75% of people interviewed said that reports on TV inspired their gift.

New media did have an impact. 5% of donors said they gave because of online communications, though email was seen to be surprisingly unimportant, standing at just 1%.

It backs up data from Hitwise, which saw the biggest increase in traffic to charity sites coming from news sites. Visits from Facebook and Twitter remained static.

Where new media has demonstrated its importance is in how people actually chose to give. Back in 2004, just 7% of people gave to the tsunami appeal via new media. In 2010, 17% of people surveyed chose this route to support the Haiti appeal.

Donating cash - through traditional collections – remains the most popular route to give. 40% of respondents gave in this way.

Though research shows that social media doesn't appear to be that important, I don't think we are necessarily asking the right questions in research. The impact of a stream of reminders and the power of social compliance can't be ignored.

I'm involved in some meetings next week looking at how we can measure the fundraising impact of group influence generated by online networks. I'll be sure to share what we uncover once the research is complete.

Until then, here's a short and entertaining video showing how powerful it's psychological impact can be (thanks to Social Hallucinations for finding the clip).

glumbert - Elevator Psychology

For details of what happened in the USA where 13% of donors gave via text, take a look at this post here.

What should you do with newly recruited Haiti emergency donors?

There have been a number of posts in the blogosphere offering advice about what charities should do with donors recruited in response to Haitian earthquake appeals.

Traditionally, emergency donors are very hard to retain, often only surfacing during the next high-profile disaster.

So any advice on how to improve conversion rates is useful stuff.

Jeff Brooks and Steven Screen dedicate a whole podcast to fundraising around the Haiti earthquake. You can download this via itunes or by clicking here.

Jonathan Grapsas, recommends making the second ask very quickly. His colleague, Sean Triner, wrote a piece for Fundraising and Philanthropy Australia a few months ago that looks specifically at the issue of converting emergency donors. As well as advocating speed, Sean details a five point disaster conversion plan that is well worth implementing.

He refers to the advice of Leo Orland from Australian fundraising agency, Robejohn. Leo also sees speed as essential, recommending donors are thanked immediately. At the same time they should be promised feedback and told when to expect it. Excellent advice.

But I think it is useful to look at what exactly we should be saying in these communications.

With conversion, content really is king and developing the right strategy shouldn't be left to chance.

I've been doing some research on what strategies were used following the tsunami emergency in 2004 to see if there are any lessons to be learned. I've found a great piece by Tom Pope that looks at a number of US organisations and how they approached the loyalty building process. It's a long article so I'm highlighting the key points of each strategy and the results. You should definitely read it in its entirety here as it contains loads of interesting information. Additional material comes from Fundraising Success magazine.

International Rescue Committee (IRC)

Tsunami strategy

• Focused on the organisation rather than the emergency.
• Rather than create a tsunami based emergency recruitment pack, they used a long-standing control pack that focused on work in Sudan.
• They added an additional tsunami focused insert in the pack.
• New recruits were thanked and welcomed to the IRC.
• Feedback was provided by monthly online and DM communications.

Follow up appeals

• Tsunami donors were thanked for supporting the IRC's tsunami relief work and showed how their money had been used before new work was covered).
  
• Non-tsunami donors received the standard communication without the tsunami focused thanks and feedback.

Results (based on response to one DM appeal based on work in Sierra Leone)

• 8.6% response for the tsunami donors
• 4.6% response for non-tsunami donors

CARE USA

Tsunami strategy

• Focused on CARE's wider mission to fight poverty.
  
• New emergency donors were sent "preference cards" so they could control subsequent communications.
• Welcome materials with the message about CARE's wider mission were also used.
• Feedback was provided after 100 days and again at 6 months.

Follow up appeals

• Communications were focused on "Poverty is the silent tsunami".
• The strategy was to "...gain support for any poverty that makes people susceptible to a crisis".

Results (partial year communications only)

• Previous retention rates for emergency donors stood at 22% (compared to 42% for non-emergency donors).
  
• 8% of tsunami donors had made second gift against an expected rate of 9-10% at the same stage in the appeal cycle.
• Predicted 22% normal emergency retention rate would not be achieved.
  
• Adam Hicks, Vice President of marketing and communications thought their approach had improved retention...

"If we weren't doing those things, the responses would be much less".

Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Tsunami strategy

• Followup communications told the donor "about the organisation as a whole".

Follow up appeals

• CRS had no online programme, so emergency donors were converted to a DM communication stream.
• Communications were revamped. They included:

1. A reminder for donors telling them how generous they were
2. Reports on how money had been used
3. Thank you calls (using a combination of live operator and taped messages).

Results

• 8% of tsunami donors made a second gift against a 'normal' rate of 32% - 33%.
• Second gifts were high with an average of $150 or more.
• Best responders were originally recruited from the web or through unsolicited postal donations.

American Red Cross

No detailed analysis but..

Steve Denne, Vice President for development operations says online donors were opting out at a far lower rate than in previous emergencies.

"They are staying connected with email communications with us more than in the past".

Direct Relief International (DRI)

No detailed analysis but...

41.000 were recruited at the time of the tsunami. Mainly from TV reports. Donors were given access to the standard communications programme of an online newsletter updated on a bi-weekly basis.

No second appeal results but things look positive. Many corporate donors came back to support work surrounding Hurricane Katrina. Over $2.3 million was received without any marketing support.

Strategy to convert online donors was to bond them to the organisation through...

"...direct mail, online strategies and reporting back quickly to them, an in the same way they reached you...when you ask them for a gift, you have to give a compelling story about why the gift is needed, and you have to recognise their help."

Oxfam Canada

Tsunami strategy

Created a separate monthly giving programme that focused on converting emergency donors by highlighting three emergency issues faced by the organisation – immediate response, reconstruction and emergency preparedness.

Follow up appeals

• One month after giving donors received a feedback postcard.
• After two months donors received an in-depth newsletter focusing on Oxfam's response to the crisis.
• After four months donors received a request for a regular gift...

1. Donors who gave via the web were emailed.
2. Donors who gave via the telephone were called.
3. Donors who gave via the web were called.

Results (conversion to regular gift)

• Emailed web supporters - 0.2%
• Telephone supporters who were called - 7.5%
• Web supporters who were called - 13%

So what does all this mean?

One of the ongoing themes of this blog is the concept of donor needs. By answering them, we can build loyalty and raise more money. 

One incredibly important need is for personal growth - in part, this means to reaffirm a donor's self-image. This can be answered by showing them exactly what they helped achieve. This seems to be what the IRC did.

All things weren't equal for charities or their donors, but the IRC found that more emergency donors responded to their first warm appeal than those who were recruited at other times. With an 85% uplift, that's quite astounding.

Other charities that chose to lead communications by telling new donors about the wider work of the organisation didn't do so well.

That's because donors care more about what THEY have personally done, rather than what a charity is doing.

Donors give through charities. Not to them.

It's far too soon to see how donors who have given to Haiti will convert to regular support, but some early data shows that it doesn't seem it will be any easier this time around.

The American Red Cross has done fantastically with their Haiti text donations. $26 million had been raised by Thursday the 21st of January. But only about 5% of those people gave the Red Cross permission to contact them again.

As for my recommendations? You know your donors better than anyone and will probably have your own programmes and tests results to draw on. But, for what it's worth, this is what I would do.

• Thank donors quickly.
• Ask donors what they want and how they want it.
• Update regularly with a focus on what the donor has done.
• concentrate on the benefit to a small number of individuals rather than recounting statistics about tonnes of aid delivered (there's a great piece on the power of small numbers over big ones here via @jeffbrooks)
• Use the web where possible, but make sure your emails are being opened.
• Use highly personal direct mail communications
• Show the donor you know who they are. Remind them of the value of their gift and what it has done in Haiti.
• In all future appeals, continue to write about what the donor has done rather than what you, as an organisation, have achieved.
• Use the telephone to convert donors to regular giving.
• Be creative in how you engage donors. If people aren't interested in setting up a regular gift for general work, offer them alternatives...

1. Consider setting up an emergency fund. Gifts to this will be used for reconstruction and for the next disaster. Feedback on the impact of the donor's actions will build loyalty. From there, conversion to non-earmarked forms of giving will be easier. (I've worked on programmes like this in the UK and they are effective).
   

2. If you have donors giving via direct debit who give to your emergency appeals, consider asking them if they would be willing to have a gift automatically added to their monthly gift the next time a disaster strikes.

Many donors who have given to Haiti might be making their first significant gift to any charity, if we show them the impact of their action and make the experience rewarding, we will do more than raise more money for one emergency.

We will expand the universe of people who give to charity, increasing the effectiveness of the whole sector.

And that can only be good for everyone.

And finally, this approach isn't just suitable for emergency donors. The same basic strategy can be used to convert all new recruits.

Social networks don't seem to be driving extra traffic to help Haiti

Bill Tancer of Hitwise has reported on some fascinating data on his blog.

The earthquake in Haiti caused a huge jump in visits to US charity websites. They were up five fold from an average of 0.02% before the earthquake hit to over 0.1% on the 13th of January.

Whilst search engines continue to be the main driver of traffic, news websites registered the greatest increase, more than doubling the number of visits they drove – from 8% on the 12th to almost 17% on the 14th.

The top contributors were:

• Drudge Report 3.6%
• ABCnews.com 0.2%
• MSNBC 0.14%

Interestingly, considering the amount of coverage of the earthquake we've seen on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, traffic from these sources remained relatively static.

The DEC tells donors what their gift will do

Featuring huge numbers of people in need in fundraising materials serves to make the reader feel helpless.

Research shows that people who feel helpless give less money.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) didn't follow the standard route of focusing on the magnitude of the recent earthquake in Haiti in their appeals. They focused on what a donor could do with their donation.

It might not be perfect, but it's one of the best emergency ads I've seen in a long while.

For more thoughts on emergency appeals, Read Aline's post at Bluefrog Creative.

Less is more

This is an incredibly strong video from Oxfam about the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But, to my mind, it would have been better had it ended at 1 minute with a call to action. The opening scenes are so moving that it doesn't need the interview at the end. The final section almost acts as a buffer allowing me to forget what I've seen rather than directing me immediately to do what is right – give.