George Washington was a savvy entrepreneur whose interest in technology led to agricultural innovations that helped his plantation thrive.
It’s only fitting, then, that the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, which owns the first president’s Virginia mansion and estate, is using digital tools to sow seeds of support in new places. Just a few months after launching a new website in August 2014, the nonprofit saw a difference in its harvest of donations.
“We do have an older donor base, which is a good thing in many ways, and we’re grateful for that, but I think enhancing our website and the online experience will hopefully attract younger folks to Mount Vernon as well,” says Susan Magill, vice president for advancement at Mount Vernon.
Here’s how the organization bridges the gap between the 18th and 21st centuries and raises money to help preserve the past.
Focusing on its mission to educate
Although conserving the historic house where President Washington once lived is a major part of Mount Vernon’s mission, so too is its charge to educate people about the founding father’s life and times. The new website, built with the help of Fastspot, a firm based in Baltimore, has educational materials, such as videos, a virtual tour, maps, and articles that teach people about Washington’s world even if they can’t visit his mansion in person.
“The feedback we’re getting is the content of the website is a lot more compelling,” says Ms. Magill. “Statistically, engagement with the website is growing.”
In 2012, the site had about one million unique visitors a year, Mount Vernon reported; in 2014, the site had three million unique visitors.
The increased Web traffic includes more international visitors, a trend Ms. Magill hopes will lead to increased giving by people outside of the United States.
The educational materials are a good way to introduce new people to Mount Vernon, Ms. Magill says, and also serve as evidence to donors and potential donors of how their contributions make a difference.
“We think it’s a great thing for stewardship for our existing donors and members, who can clearly see the work we do and the work we’re planning to do,” she says.
Tailoring its campaigns for a new audience
Some of the success of Mount Vernon’s online fundraising efforts comes from making it easier for current donors to contribute online. Direct-mail appeals include a link to the donation website, and a lot of the nonprofit’s nationwide members now complete their renewals online, Ms. Magill says.
“We’re trying to do things in a very holistic way,” she says. “We want to make it easy for people to contribute in whatever way suits them.”
But appealing to digital-native donors means more than just putting traditional appeals online. The organization created a “new media” team under the direction of the visitor engagement department in order to oversee digital projects and ramp up the nonprofit’s social-media presence—hitting 100,000 Facebook fans in the fall of 2014.
What’s more, Mount Vernon is devising campaigns that are time-sensitive, specific, and focused on people’s passions.
It helps, Ms. Magill says, “if you’re asking for money for something very specific instead of just Mount Vernon in general. Not a multimillion-dollar project, but something small where people think their contribution will be an integral part of the process.”
For example, knowing that modern pet owners love their dogs as much as Washington loved his, the nonprofit raised money on Giving Tuesday 2014 to build a new dog kennel for the canines that patrol the estate for security and keep wild animals out of the garden. People who contributed at least $25 received a Mount Vernon bandana for their dogs. The organization met its $10,000 fundraising goal in a day.
There has also been a strong response to an ongoing effort to raise money online for a new fire-suppression system for the mansion, says Ms. Magill. That campaign has its own webpage with short articles about the history of fire at Mount Vernon.
Keeping the traditional channels open
Big donors still contribute a significant proportion of Mount Vernon’s support, and Ms. Magill stresses the importance of fostering those relationships even while encouraging people to make small donations online.
“Most of our money is not raised online,” she says. “I think it’s a gradual process as people change how they conduct their business. We have to make it as easy as possible; that’s our approach to it. We see it as one critically important part of our fundraising, but not the panacea to everything.”
By the Numbers
Unique website visitors in 2012: 1 million
Unique website visitors in 2014: 3 million
Increase in Facebook likes from 2013 to 2014: 94 percent, to more than 106,000
Increase in Twitter followers from 2013 to 2014: 200 percent, to more than 15,000