Recurring Donors and Mobile Giving Lift 2018’s Results at Colleges and Schools, Report Says

Title: “Online Giving to Schools in 2018"

Organization: GiveCampus

Summary: Online giving to colleges, universities, and schools was up 27 percent in 2018 over the previous year. December’s online fundraising was particularly robust, with those institutions raising 48 percent more than in December 2017. Both the number of donors and the value of their gifts increased in 2018, according to the report by GiveCampus, a provider of online fundraising software to educational institutions.

Critical to this increase was the rise in popularity of mobile giving and recurring gifts, according to the report. Donations made on mobile devices accounted for more than half of all online contributions made to GiveCampus’s institutions in 2018. And recurring gifts increased in value by 35 percent in 2018 over 2017.

The study’s data comes from more than 600 institutions that use the GiveCampus platform.

Mobile devices drove more than half of the traffic to online fundraising pages last year, signaling the continued need to optimize for mobile users. One way to do this is by simplifying or eliminating giving forms, says Kestrel Linder, GiveCampus’s co-founder and chief executive: “Forms are evil when it comes to conversion online, whether it’s donating or purchasing.” The report also suggests emphasizing recurring gifts during their campaigns.

Among the study’s other findings:

• Older donors were as likely to give online in 2018 as younger ones: Alumni donors to colleges and universities were split evenly between those who graduated in 2000 or later and those who graduated earlier.
• Direct appeals from donors’ relatives, friends, or peers by email, social media, or text message inspired 16 percent of online contributions in 2018. One-third of prospective donors who arrived on an educational institution’s donation page got there by social media, usually Facebook.
• Institutions that held a Giving Tuesday campaign saw their overall fundraising rise by nearly 15 percent cover 2017.
• About 10 percent of mobile donors used Apple Pay, an option GiveCampus added in June.