queer ideas

What happens when Stephen Fry actually does mention you in a tweet?

Sit in any discussion about how a charity can promote a campaign on social media and it won't be long before someone suggests asking Stephen Fry to tweet about it.

Being very kind, intelligent and rather lovely, he is known to tweet on behalf of a wide range of non-profit organisations. And with over 6.5 million followers, he can drive some serious traffic to a website.

So what does happen when Stephen mentions a campaign or a cause in a tweet?

Stephen mentioned wecometogether.org in this tweet on Monday the tenth of February at 5.57pm.

The site went crazy. Within two minutes we'd had over one thousand hits. And three days later that single tweet is still driving traffic.

From the initial spike the number of hits settled down to about sixty a minute which continued until late in to the night. Here's a screen grab that shows the number of hits over the first hour.

We are currently standing at well over 21,000 hits and we can't see the flow stopping.

But what about conversions?

And that's the point of this post. Too many people think that social media is a magical panacea for a fledgling campaign. It's not. It can help, but without a great offer, you are never going to be able to generate significant levels of income.

People will come and have a look and then simply click back to see what else is happening on Twitter.

The conversion rate we've seen is comparable to a good press insert in a good publication.

That's very pleasing. The danger of our approach was that people might just come and have a look at the TV ad and then disappear. That's not the case. People are looking and sharing. But, most importantly, we are generating donations.

Our goal now is to see what worked for this test and what didn't and develop the product from there.
And of course, if you are looking for a St. Valentine's Day present for someone special, you've still got a few hours to click here to get something rather unusual for them.

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.

Online donors have letter boxes too

Here's another couple of charts that Damian O'Broin from Ask Direct and I shared at IOF London on our international mystery shopping exercise.

It gives a few more insights in to how charities are integrating email and postal communications.

One of our most surprising findings was that relatively few of the charities we surveyed put a thank you letter in the post in response to an online gift.

Just 5% of British charities did. American charities came next at a little over 20%. Canadians were better at 40%, whilst Australian charities provided over half of online donors with a 'real' thank you.

And when it came to subsequent appeals, things weren't much better.

As you'll see from this chart (showing results just from the UK), emails were often flying thick and fast – though not in all cases. But what surprised me most was that many charities didn't send out any postal appeals in the six to seven months following receipt of an online gift (purple columns).

A number of people questioned this point in our session, asking whether it was appropriate to mail someone who had chosen to given online. And luckily we included a few recent studies on online giving that surprised a few people and demonstrated, once again, that DM is still alive and kicking.

The first is a piece of US research from last year that found that 14% of online donors gave an online donation in response to a mailing pack, whereas just 6% gave in response to an email.

And when it comes to preference, you'll see below that over a third of those surveyed were happiest using a charity website to give to DM appeals.

TNT found UK donors had similar attitudes in a study they also undertook in 2010. You can read more on this survey here.

I'll ensure that we have the complete presentation of the mystery shopping survey up soon.

Who sends your emails?

Along with Damian O'Broin of the rather good Irish fundraising agency, Ask Direct, I presented some findings taken from a massive international mystery shopping exercise (270 charities in six countries) at IOF London yesterday.

I'm going to post the full presentation online, but I thought it might be worth highlighting one or two specific findings in the meantime.

The first is the weird set of entities that send a thank you email in response to an online gift.

You'll see from the screen grab just some of the fun descriptions that people use. My own particular favourite is Internet. It's like being thanked for giving to a DM appeal by the Royal Mail.

To my mind it isn't really a great way to start a relationship and it looks like organisations like the Irish Heart Foundation, Barnardo's, UNICEF and Amnesty agree.

It might take a little effort and you might even have to change the people who process your payments, but I think it might be worth turning off the default receipt system and creating your own one instead. Particularly if it results in happier donors.

Five things we learned at the IFC

Following a very enjoyable few days at the International Fundraising Congress in Amsterdam, I've put together my key take aways from the event.

1. There's loads more to data than just numbers.

Chuck Longfield, Blackbaud's chief scientist, has a job where he can crunch millions of numbers from a huge range of charities. If a question pops into his head, it doesn't take him long to find the answer.

In his session, Chuck shared some of his findings which included the following juicy nuggets…

• If someone calls you to change their address they are TEN times more likely to leave you a legacy (or upgrade, or set up a regular gift or anything else you might ask them to do).
• Donors who tend to give uncommon amounts (e.g. £32) are much easier to upgrade than those who give common amounts (e.g. £25).
• Donors get hooked on giving amounts. After 4 years they are 80% more likely to stick to their preferred amount rather than increase their gift (rising to 90% after 5 years).
• Calling a donor to thank them (whether you speak to them or just leave a message on the answer phone) can increase their next year's gift value by up to 40%.
• Misspelling someone's last name can decrease gift size by up to 12%.

2. Old school communications are the best for building deep engagement

AJ Leon is Chief Maker of Trouble (that's a real job title) at Misfit Inc. in New York. AJ told a story of how he helped raise $72,000 for a total cost of $250. He included a few key insights too...

• Stories have to have conflict. If Frodo had just skipped into Mordor and tossed the ring into the volcano, no one would have cared.
• The tools of fundraising are changing, but the principles of engagement are the same.
• People don't automatically trust big brands any longer - including charity brands.
• Never let your organisation get in the way of a good story.
• When launching a campaign always ask which bloggers you can link up with.
• Social media has made donating even more annoying.
• Management boards kill great ideas.
• Things are moving so fast that spending time writing a ten year strategy is worthless.

You can see AJ's presentation here. And you might like to read Paul de Gregorio's thoughts on it here.

3. The recession is here to stay

Tony Elischer (amongst others) pointed out that the recession is going to be sticking around for a long-time yet but that was no reason to accept poor results. He highlighted the fact that over 60% of donors only give once, describing it, quite rightly, as shameful...

"That's not the fault of people who are giving. That's our fault. We're still not getting that second gift."

He showed how organisations like Christian Aid have bucked the trend by fundamentally changing their fundraising offer, recruiting donors by focusing on work that donors want to support and allowing them to give in the way that works for them.

4. Rubbish in = rubbish out

Direct Mail is working. Digital is working. Mobile is working. The trouble is they don't work if the underlying idea, content and offer is rubbish.

5. Everything on the internet is just speeded up direct marketing

Beate Sorum of the Norwegian Cancer Society put together a great presentation that tackled one of the ongoing myths of the fundraising world – that digital fundraising is magic. It isn't.

What was particularly interesting about Beate's presentation was the distinction she made between communicating online and through a press ad or DM pack. The difference is one of size. And that's the problem...

"On the internet we can put up any crap...so we forget to prioritise, we forget to ask and we forget to rigidly monitor and analyse".

Her advice was that we should re-learn our direct marketing and remember to test what we ask for, how often we ask and who we ask.

Or in other words, we need to give donors an opportunity to do something they want about something they care about.

You can see Beate's presentation here.

An award tells you more about the judges than the contestants

D&AD have just had their annual awards bash where they hand out their coveted yellow pencils in recognition of outstanding creative work.

It's not just the big agencies who get their chance to shine, students have their opportunity too. And this year, one of the categories included an open brief for Oxfam.

Teams were asked to "present an idea that engages support for Oxfam by triggering shared values and concerns in a wide range of people."

The winner was from the Miami Ad School (in Madrid) with their entry, It's a better life without Oxfam.

As you'll see, their approach was an online platform where users can find details of Oxfam staff and where they work.

Each staff member shares their dream of what they would like to do if they didn't work for Oxfam and...well, watch the video and you'll find out.

I don't want to criticise the students as they are probably a really nice bunch of people who know more about what is likely to win a yellow pencil than I do.

And that's my point.

As a charity concept it fails at pretty much every level. There is a sniff of an idea in there, but it is smothered by a complete disregard and rejection of why people actually choose to support good causes.

But it won the award.

And on that basis, the team behind it has been successful. They understood what their audience – D&AD judges – wanted and they delivered. Congratulations to them.

But it also explains something else. It shows us why ad agencies are so terrible at producing advertisements for charities. They simply don't get it.

Our story-telling techniques, the way we demonstrate need, the way we use music, endorsements and financial justifications seem to "bore the shit" out of them. So much so, that they reward an entry that directly criticises what we know actually works.

I can understand why. They must be very frustrated.

Agency after agency has tried to break the 'charity ad' mould only to see their ideas fail. All the while, low budget productions are continuing to attract new donors and actually raise the money that charities use to carry out their life-saving and life-changing work.

So, if you want to win an award, any of the agencies where the D&AD judges work might be a great place to start.

But if you were looking for a fresh face in advertising who might actually help you recruit and engage donors, can I suggest you go to the bottom of the D&AD list and take a look at what Amy Weston from Sheffield College has produced. She created a rather neat little idea called Give. Grow. Gain. that really does demonstrate an understanding of why people give.

If you read this Amy, get in touch and come and have a chat. You look like you know what you're doing.

Thanks to @skipinder and @pollysymondson for the heads up.

If you don't build what donors want, they aren't going to come

Blackbaud have just released their 2011 Internet and Multi-channel Giving Benchmarking Report.

Based on data from 28 US nonprofit organisations, It takes a long-term look (5 years) on how donors move between online and traditional direct marketing programmes.

It's a US study, but many of the findings can be broadly applied to the situation in the UK.

The report is packed full of interesting stats and graphs that make it worthy of detailed study. It can be downloaded here. But just in case time is tight at the moment, here are my particular highlights...

• Direct mail is still king.
• More donors are being recruited via online routes.
• Online donors tend to be younger, richer and more generous than those acquired through the mail.
• But they also demonstrate lower levels of loyalty.
• Robust DM programmes drive up the retention and long-term value of new donors acquired online.
• Online donors also tend to give less once they move offline.

The report also shows that though online donors are happy to give through the mail, there is not much traffic moving the other way. DM donors like to stick with their mailing packs. I rather like this chart showing movement of online donors since 2007 (you'll find the corresponding one for mail recruits in the report) ...

I have no doubt this is true, but I'd question whether this is a rigid characteristic of offline donors or a simple reflection of the current situation?

Most charities have pretty advanced direct mail programmes and it's relatively cheap and easy to put online donors in a direct mail communications stream and be pleased with the results. Whereas many of those same charities are still finding their feet when it comes to online fundraising - particularly with warm donors. The report sums up the situation rather neatly...

"The Internet is a successful acquisition channel but it has not proven to be an effective one for retention."

In the UK, the major utilities are persuading ever increasing numbers of customers to engage with them online. In 2010, almost 2 million payments to British Gas and 40% of their customer contacts happened via the web.

So why can't charities achieve the same results?

I think they can. But we need to look at the medium in a different way. If you analyse what happens online when a mailing goes out, you'll find an increase in hits and donations. Call me crazy, but I think there's some sort of correlation here (you can read more about this on this previous post).

The trouble is, most websites aren't built to be fundraising vehicles. Instead the homepage can end up being a battleground where departments fight to get 'their' message out – ideally above the fold.

So when a donor gets a mailing pack and thinks it might be easier to give online, a visit to the charity's website can leave them rather confused. In the worst case they may even end up questioning what the charity actually wants - particularly if they are confronted with a campaigning action or policy statement instead of something that supports the appeal. 

And there's little point giving a donor the address of a specific landing page in your mailing pack. Track your statistics and you'll find few actually type in www.insertcharitynamehere.org/christmasappeal. Instead they do what they normally do and find your home page via Google. 

We shouldn't really be surprised about this. If we look at the other multi-purpose communication device used by charities – the newsletter – we find that these aren't very responsive either. But when we repurpose them with a specific goal such as raising funds, they do very well.

It's the same when we build a site with the goal of retaining and upgrading donors rather than just hoping our current website will do the job for us. We find – as if by magic – we retain and upgrade our donors. 

The techniques required to do this aren't rocket science. They are the same rules that we use to create effective direct mail programmes, the most important of which are...

• Show the donor what they have done.
• Make the experience personal.
• Demonstrate need.
• Offer incentives for actions.

For me, this report offers a challenge. It shows that where we fail to engage donors, we also fail to raise funds. If we are to tackle this situation (and improve the retention rates of all supporters) we need to look again at our websites and ask ourselves if they give donors what they want?

Because when it comes to fundraising, this report firmly suggests that they aren't. 

The great banner sale

GRAACC is a Brazilian hospital that offers free treatment for children with cancer.

Over the last few years they have used a number of innovative approaches to raising funds. in 2011, they undertook the great banner sale.

Rather than simply ask people for money, they asked companies to donate banner space on their web sites. Instead of using them to promote the hospital, they sold the spots to other companies and individuals.

It seemed to work quite well.

When compared to their 2010 campaign, the number of donors jumped by over 2,500% and the value of their gifts increased by 260%.

You can learn more on this video...

 

And if you're interested in GRAACC's campaign for 2010, that was rather different too. They asked people to donate their whole website to the charity. Another idea that doesn't seem to have performed that badly, generating over 185,000 hits in just one day and increasing the number of supporters by 220%. Details of this are included in this video...

 

Thanks to @HayesThompson for the heads up.

Protect the donor

We all know the old adage, look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves, but it should probably be extended to supporters too. Because if we take care of our donors, we won't need to worry about income targets.

That might sound brave or foolish (or both), but following the launch of Animal Protector for WSPA, it should ring true.

Animal Protector has been built using Bluefrog's uSpace donor loyalty engine. If you'd like to know how uSpace works, I featured it in this previous post and others have mentioned it too.

Animal Protector was created in response to WSPA's desire to improve donor retention. It aims to build a relationship with regular givers by showing them exactly how their donations are protecting animals. Through regular updates, supporters can see projects unfold and get to know some of the animals they care so much about.

But more importantly, it gives people a chance to interact with WSPA and define themselves as supporters – in a way that works best for them.

Because if there is one thing we've learned as we've moved from the first generation of uSpace to the second, is that choice is important to donors. But not in the way that many people might think.

WSPA works with a wide range of animals in many different parts of the world, and it seems obvious that one way to enhance a donor's relationship with the charity is to allow them to choose to fund work that benefits a favourite species.

It's obvious. But it's wrong. Donors may have a preference, but that doesn't mean they want to fund work that only benefits that type of animal (if they did, there are many species-specific charities they could easily discover on Google).

By choosing one specific creature, donors have to say no to others. And that can make people feel uncomfortable, particularly when their primary aim is to stop cruelty to ALL animals.

So rather than ask people to choose just one project, we gave them the opportunity to align themsleves with their favourite animal in a different way – by customising their Animal Protector site.

When people sign up, they are presented with different menus, one of which allows them to choose their masthead...

 

 

I've chosen a cow, but if people prefer a bear or a dog, they can choose that header instead. All the time knowing that they are helping all animals...

 

As you'll see, the logo also changes to match donor choice. It's based on a human thumbprint, but developed to represent each animal through the use of the relevant paw or footprint. Donors can use this as their default avatar, but many are uploading pictures of their own pets or animals they have seen in the wild. We've examples of everything from dogs to bears, to ducks to tortoises. And, shock horror, some donors are even uploading photographs of themselves. It's going to be very interesting to look at how the type of avatar relates to giving behaviour.

But choice doesn't stop there. Supporters can also choose a travel wallet or keyring that publicly demonstrates their commitment.

And those people who don't think that donors are interested in these devices, might be interested to hear that over 90% of donors who are signing up are actively requesting them.

And of course, donors can share their opinions too. Each post is accompanied by a growing list of comments. This is perhaps the most exciting (and rewarding) part of the project as donors are showing just how much they value being an Animal Protector and the the insight that goes with it.

A comment from one particular supporter, that summed up the sentiment behind many of the thoughts being shared, simply said...

"Thankyou to those in the midst of this wonderful rescue work for their dedication to animals that come in to their care. The animals can't say "thank you" themselves so I will say it for them. They send you lots of love."

However, I've left the best to last. The site has only been live for a week or two, and has already attracted thousands of supporters. But one of the most interesting side-effects of offering this combination of self-definition and in-depth feedback has been the number of people who have upgraded.

When we launched the site, we simply wanted to get as many people as possible to join. But donors have been so happy to know their money is making such a big difference that almost 8% of current regular givers who signed-up have chosen to upgrade their gift without even being asked.

See what I mean about income targets looking after themselves?

If you'd like to know more, why don't you sign up for yourself and see just how rewarding being an Animal Protector can be? Just click here to find out more.

So what's going on in the digital fundraising world?

The 2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study has been published by M+R Strategic Services and the Nonprofit Technology Network. It's based on analysing the online giving and advocacy activity of donors to 40 charities and nonprofits. It is obviously a US study, but the figures are useful to those of us wondering how we are doing with our online fundraising in the UK too.

You can download your free copy here (registration required but it's worth it).

As you'll see, the headline figure is one of growth. Income is up 14% from 2009 to 2010, much of it generated by appeals for Haiti and Pakistan. But all sectors actually saw an increase in the number of online gifts.

But that isn't necessarily down to the emails charities are sending as generally, response rates are in decline. The average for fundraising emails was down 17% at just 0.08%. Advocacy was down 7% at 3.3%.

Unsubscribe rates were approximately 0.24% for appeals, 0.22% for newsletters and 0.16% for advocacy emails.

One point I'd add that isn't covered in detail by this study is the impact email can have when used alongside direct mail appeals. We've seen a significant increase in response rates (upwards of 5%) when combining the two. So though response rates might generally be in decline, integration can be a very effective remedy (at least in the UK).

Facebook fan pages have seen growth rates on average of 14% a month and have been particularly popular for supporters of charities and nonprofits working in the wildlife and animal welfare sector.

Whereas Twitter seems most popular for people interested in international development.

Churn rates stood at an average of 18% for email and 14% for mobiles.

The report is packed full of tons of detailed data and well worth a read. There's a particularly interesting case study on how one organisation has used text messages to great effect. You'll also be able to dig through all the information on average gifts as well (which isn't necessarily so relevant to the UK).