Amazon’s Alexa has spent the past few months making donations to nonprofits at the behest of donors.
But charities haven’t quite determined what the digital assistant’s capability will mean for fundraising.
“We’re definitely still figuring it out,” says Greg Sims, senior manager of individual giving at the Atlanta Community Food Bank, which last month joined more than 120 organizations that are registered to accept donations through Alexa.
The food bank has raised only one donation so far after mentioning Alexa in a recent newsletter — though it might start testing other appeals soon, Sims says.
Since Alexa Donations was unveiled in April, other groups that have signed up say they have received only a small number of contributions.
Still, much like the advent of mobile and social-media appeals, Alexa Donations could be the start of a growing trend in voice-activated giving, fundraisers say.
Though no other tech giants have announced similar programs yet, it’s probably only a matter of time before Alexa’s competitors — like Microsoft’s Cortana and Google Assistant — catch up.
“I just have to believe that this is not a passing fad,” Sims says.
With more and more households owning voice-controlled speakers, donating through them could become just as normal as other digital giving, says T.J. Griffin, a nonprofit technology consultant. “I think it does have the ability to be revolutionary,” he says.
How Donors Use Alexa
The biggest selling point for the service is its convenience, fundraisers say.
Donors who use Alexa don’t need to whip out a credit card or pick up a phone to give. Instead they can just say, “Alexa, make a donation.” The voice assistant asks which charity the person wants to donate to — or sends a list of available charities through the Alexa app.
The person selects an organization and an amount — anywhere from $5 to $5,000 — tells Alexa it wants to make the donation now, and, voilà, the contribution is made through the debit or credit card on the supporter’s Amazon Pay account. (Donors can make the process faster by simply saying, “Alexa, make a donation to St. Jude” or “Alexa, donate $25 to St. Jude.”)
That ease is important, says Alice Hendricks, chief executive of Jackson River, a firm that helps nonprofits raise money online. “If you have a voice, you can give the donation — which is quite remarkable,” she says.
Griffin agrees: “Anything that removes the barrier between the payment method and the organization is a good thing for fundraisers,” he says.
To join, nonprofits must register for Amazon Pay, the company’s payment-processing system for outside vendors. It’s free to sign up, but there is a 2.2 percent processing fee and a 30-cent authorization fee for each transaction. For foreign donations, the processing fee is 3.2 percent.
Public Media Takes the Lead
In these early days of digital-assistant fundraising, public radio appears to be taking a lead.
Many people listen to NPR and other stations through their smart speakers — which provides a good opportunity to promote Alexa giving.
“If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on public media” being among the first successful users, Griffin says.
KUOW, Seattle’s NPR affiliate, has raised about 35 donations through Alexa since April totaling more than $1,600 — a small sum for an organization that raises millions each year. Most of the gifts came in June during its summer pledge drive, when KUOW broadcast promotions that touted Alexa giving.
For its fall drive — its biggest of the year — KUOW is still thinking through how Alexa will play a role, says Karyn Andriesen, the station’s director of development. Some on-air messages will almost certainly note that donations can be made through the voice assistant, she says. The station might even mention it in email, social media, and mail appeals.
“In any one of those messaging streams, we might be saying, ‘Make your gift online or ‘Tell your smart speaker to make a gift to KUOW,’” Andriesen says. “So it just becomes another tool in the toolbox of how we’re looking at integrating all of our messaging.”
Email Appeals
Some groups have already experimented with email appeals mentioning Alexa.
Charity Navigator, a nonprofit watchdog group, sent a message in late June notifying subscribers that it was accepting gifts through the voice assistant. “Donating to your favorite cause is getting easier and easier!” said the email. The message included a “Show Me How” link directing supporters to a webpage with information on using the service.
Charity Navigator — which has received a couple dozen gifts through Alexa — will likely note in emails in its year-end fundraising drive that Alexa is available as an option, though the service won’t be a centerpiece of the campaign, says Shannon McCracken, chief development officer. “We’re not going to specifically build out a big drive to move donors from the channel they are currently in to give through Alexa,” she says. “I think it’s more just educating donors about the fact that it’s out there, planting that seed.”
Putting Mission First
Some nonprofits are looking to the voice-activated assistants to advance their missions as a primary goal and then do fundraising.
The American Cancer Society, which has raised a few dozen donations through Alexa, hopes to provide information that Alexa can use to help people quickly find reliable information about cancer, says Ben Kaplan, senior director of digital product management.
Kaplan envisions that the organization could add a donation appeal through that program, he says. Email, web, and radio appeals might contain mentions of Alexa giving, too, he says: “We would promote any new channel through those mediums,” he says.
For the Atlanta Community Food Bank, all forms of promotion are on the table, including informing donors of Alexa giving in possible radio and TV spots, says Sims. The convenience of using Alexa will matter to donors, Sims predicts. “It’s an easier lift. It doesn’t require as much” as filling out an online donation form, he says.
A Few Hiccups
Some charities have minor gripes so far after trying Alexa.
For instance, Sims says it took a few weeks for the Atlanta Community Food Bank to hear back from an Amazon representative on questions about registration, which delayed the process.
Also: Getting donor data like an email address — a big concern for nonprofits raising money digitally — won’t be seamless for many charities.
Groups can download donor data through an online portal and upload it into their systems manually — a step most nonprofits would rather avoid. They get a supporter’s name, street address, and email address, according to Amazon.
But if organizations want that data fed directly into their donor database, they’ll need a savvy programmer to make that happen.
In time, software companies will probably spring up to help nonprofits sign up for Alexa Donations and raise money through it, Hendricks predicts. They may also help organizations integrate the Alexa system so it connects directly with their databases.
Small Donations
Many groups expect that Alexa will mostly be part of nonprofits’ bigger efforts to attract small donations — and not big gifts.
“I think it’s definitely an acquisition tool,” says Kaplan, with the for the American Cancer Society.
Still, most nonprofits that use the service predict donations through Alexa and other voice assistants will gradually become a bigger and bigger part of charitable giving that will probably grow in tandem with commercial use. “As people start to recognize the convenience of being able to say, ‘Alexa, order more paper towels,’ they’ll start to realize, ‘Oh, I can give to give to my favorite charity this way, too.’ " says McCracken, Charity Navigator’s head fundraiser.
But it’ll take time for the service to grow, she predicts:
“It’s not something where we’re going to go out and get our donors to completely change their behavior. We’re sort of early in the door.”