Online Fundraising : Make it work for you

Small Charities Coalition Monday 28 th March 2011 – York

Panikos Efthimiou Charities Aid Foundation

Before we begin…..

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8 Seconds….

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20%....

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….1%

Exercise 1.

Imagine I am a first time visitor to your website who knows nothing about you. In one or two short sentences try and explain simply and clearly who you are and what you do 2.

Describe or draw a picture that represents what your charity does

What is Online Fundraising?

   Using the Internet to…  generate and improve relationships with your donors keep donors informed about your activities call supporters to action provide donors with a facility to make donations and sponsor an event …..and a whole lot more e.g.. auctions, gift shopping, lotteries, legacies, in-memoriam giving

Case study – I Can (online promotion)        adopt a word from the English language and ‘own’ it for a year can choose from 80,000 words each word costs from £15 celebrity support help children in UK speak and understand English apparently Stephen Fry woke it up!

www.adoptaword.com

Back to basics Successful websites…  focus on content, not technology  simple designs are most effective  engage and fundraise – plain English (avoid jargon!)

Obvious but so many get this wrong….

     use colours that contrast highly – unlike this!

text – think font and size…and accessibility navigation should be clear and concise avoid scrolling if possible use real images that convey your mission, provoke emotions - if not possible select carefully from picture library   www.mencap.org.uk

www.treehouse.org.uk

News  posting news regularly keeps donors interested but make sure you have something to say!

 encourages return visits to the site http://www.gosh.org/news/latest-news http://www.oasisuk.org/news  www.bbc.co.uk/news something to aspire to…or not!

www.icr100.org

Make it easy for donors to give  put a button on every page – it doesn’t have to be “donate now”, there are other options, “help us”, “support us”, “get involved”, “take action”…..

TEST!  have only two clicks to your donations page  tell donors what a donation will buy e.g....

   £10 will provide 10 new books in the village library £15 will allow us to produce 50 research papers £25 will pay for an artificial limb

http:// www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=10009

Don’t forget to thank your donor  automated thank you  follow this up either by email or by post  personalise the message  nurture…and upgrade!

Give donors a choice  people like to give in different ways  online fundraising compliments conventional fundraising methods and is growing fast…amounts also growing too  your website should enable a donor to  make a donation online   print off a form to complete and send to you telephone you to make a donation

http://england.shelter.org.uk/donate

Before….

…and after!

Social networking – tweets, friends, videos etc – why?

     www.facebook.com

www.twitter.com

www.youtube.com

www.myspace.com

www.bebo.com

….and a whole range of others too!

 blogs (web logs) – there are currently 90m of them….and counting!

 www.professionalfundraisingblogs.co.uk

All charities take note… Online fundraising is like joining a gym.

Just getting the card doesn’t get you fit - you have to put the effort in to be successful.

But things that require effort are not necessarily difficult…

Promoting online giving          press release paper/email communication add web address to all stationery add web address to all fundraising material add donation link to email signature charity shops - shop windows and leaflets events texts at any opportunity!

Email signature The Rainforest Foundation UK City Cloisters 196 Old Street London EC1V 9FR Tel: +44 (0) 20 7251 6345 Web: www.rainforestfoundationuk.org

PLEASE MAKE A DONATION Just £3 a month can make a world of difference to someone else.

Please do one amazing thing today, and support our work.

Direct Debits are a hassle free way for you to support our work on a regular basis.

To set up a Direct Debit, click here .

You can cancel or change your Direct Debit at anytime.

Driving traffic to the site  78% of web traffic comes from search engines 

Optimisation

– making your site user friendly so search engines can find your site - keywords, site map, Wikipedia, home page link on every page, links from big companies or charities, social networking 

Marketing

– ‘paid for advertising’ section of search results page. Two main ones are

Google

and

Overture

(part of

Yahoo!

) – also

MSN, Ask and AOL.

‘Cost per click’ – top 3 guaranteed on first page www.adwords.google.com.uk

Driving traffic to site (contd)  shorten web addresses and monitor traffic http://bit.ly

 reciprocal links/affiliate deals e.g. Amazon, Thomas Cook banners can lead to £  www.google.com/webmasters  www.google.com/websiteoptimizer

Other potential for online support  Google grants programme – grants for free charity advertising – was USA only but now branching out!

www.google.co.uk/grants  “Yahoo for Good” – free charity features www.forgood.yahoo.com

 Global Giving – project funding from individuals www.globalgiving.co.uk

 www.btcommunityconnections.com

e-newsletters    help you build and maintain online relationships cost effectively helps keep supporters informed   makes donors feel more connected to your organisation donations from e-newsletters are higher than those from websites £80 compared to £60 consider a monthly ‘lite’ version www.newsberry.com

www.dotmailer.co.uk

mail.google.com

Personally speaking….

….I think you should consider using personalised emails (52% more likely than average to inspire web visit * ) in the same way that you nurture and develop your offline donors This assumes you know stuff about them, which you should, and will allow you to ask them to do something not just give e.g. volunteer, offer specialist skills, time, trustee Encourage them to share information about themselves.

Some will and some won’t but those who do generally love to talk!

Keeps people interested…and motivated! * Response One Group

Data Protection  a law regarding the sending of unsolicited emails came into effect in December 2003  the principle aim is to stop ‘spam’ emails  data protection best practice guidelines www.businesslink.gov.uk

 data protection is monitored by a government office called The Information Commissioner… http://www.ico.gov.uk

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Fundraising through Electronic Media

and

Data Protection

pamphlets are available from Institute of Fundraising – www.institute-of-fundraising.org.uk

Disability Discrimination Act      become familiar with the law www.disability.gov.uk

talk to disabled and non-disabled users sub-titling usability useful websites: www.rnib.org.uk/wac www.w3.org/wai www.abilitynet.co.uk

 good examples to learn from include… www.gateway2at.org

www.csp.org

www.ukschoolgames.com

www.homeoffice.gov.uk

http://www.ccotrust.nhs.uk/supportyourcentre/fundraising/

Online Fundraising Plan Four basic goals: 1.

2.

make people aware of your charity get people to care about your charity 3.

4.

encourage people to support your charity keep people interested in your charity   your online fundraising strategy should be based on how you will achieve the above but remember things change very quickly so remain focused on what YOU are trying to do!

Einstein was so right……   “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere” i.e. those who use the web creatively (and simply!) will get the biggest rewards

Speak to me ☺ 

Panikos Efthimiou Tel: 07720 405 702 Email: [email protected]