Nonprofits often assume that donors who buy event tickets or sponsor someone in a walkathon are hard to get onboard as regular supporters because of their loose ties to the cause. But roughly one in four of these donors is open to the idea, according to a study released this month.
So how can charities keep these “social donors,” as the study calls them, involved?
Social donors want to know whether their money made an impact: Fifty-nine percent of those interested in giving annually or monthly to an organization said their decision most depended on whether they felt their initial gift had mattered. Despite this, 19 percent of social donors were never contacted again by the charity they supported — indicating that a lot of nonprofits are leaving money on the table.
OneCause, a fundraising and technology company, worked with Edge Research to administer an online survey of more than 1,000 of these donors in October. The participants had attended a charity event, sponsored someone in a fundraising event like a walkathon, or contributed to a social-media fundraising event in the previous 12 months.
Motivation to Give Again
Three variables must be in place for social donors to become regular contributors: recognition of a charity’s name or mission, an enjoyable giving experience, and motivation to make another, similar donation.
Among the findings:
- Fifty-nine percent of social donors gave to a charity that they had previously supported, while 38 percent of respondents gave to a charity they had not previously supported.
- Among donors who bought event tickets or sponsored someone, 31 percent felt the organization should recognize volunteers. Only 18 percent of event donors and 21 percent of sponsorship donors wanted the charity to recognize top volunteer fundraisers.
- Social donors across all generations most prefer organizations to contact them by email.
- Fifty-five percent of social donors gave their first gift to an organization because they wanted to support the person who requested their gift.
Make Giving Easy
As contributions are often the first point of interaction between charities and social donors, a positive giving experience is essential: Sixty percent of social donors made their first gift in part because it was easy.
Social donors who gave by participating in an event or by sponsoring someone in a fundraising activity reported the most negative giving experiences, with 38 percent and 37 percent, respectively, feeling that donating was not very easy. Notably, 38 percent of social donors gave online and 8 percent made mobile donations, signaling that a clunky online giving form or lousy mobile interface can hamper the giving experience.
“Giving to a nonprofit should be as easy as it is to buy toilet paper,” says Jenna Jameson, corporate communications manager at OneCause.
With 59 percent of social donors reporting that they’ll likely give the same amount within the year, nonprofits have a lot to gain from making the giving process easy.
Advertise the Impact
The study also found a significant gap between the communication that donors want and the response that they actually get. For example, while 32 percent of people who gave to a fundraising challenge wanted to learn about the impact of their gift, only 16 percent of those donors received that information.
This discrepancy should be “startling” for charities, says Kelly Velasquez Hague, vice president for content marketing and brand engagement at OneCause.
This follow-up can be as simple as a Facebook post with statistics from the fundraising event, Hague says. But nonprofits can go a step further by involving a social donor’s personal network, such as by asking a race participant to send thank-you notes to his or her sponsors.
Moreover, nonprofits shouldn’t be afraid to include requests for additional contributions in their follow-up communication with social donors. Interestingly, 52 percent of social donors said they were open to receiving another fundraising request from friends, family members, or colleagues.
Since social donors often have stronger connections to the friend or colleague who asked them to give than to the cause, Hague suggests that nonprofits use those social connections to keep donors engaged.
“Nonprofits have small teams. So how do you leverage the people who invited these [social donors] in the first place to be the personal thankers or recognizers?” Hague says.
“Personalizing the follow-up is key.”
