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Digital fundraising

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Sector experts share their tips on fundraising through the internet and email.

by WEditor — last modified Feb 16, 2011 02:41 PM

There are more ways than ever before to raise money online. That can be empowering for charities, especially those with limited budgets, but it can also be hard knowing where to begin. Here, sector experts and charities offer advice on how to approach fundraising through the internet and email.

Websites and fundraising

In terms of online fundraising, your website will be the obvious place to start. It’s important not to consider your online strategy in isolation, though. “A charity’s website should support all of its fundraising activities, most of which will be offline,” says Howard Lake, Publisher of UK Fundraising.

Rachel Beer, Founding Partner of agency Beautiful World, agrees that online fundraising is about more than simply presenting visitors to your website with a “donate” button (although of course that’s vital too). “To raise funds online, it is critical that you develop powerful, tangible appeals. You should feature these on your website, so anyone visiting your site, who may consider making a donation, has a strong rationale to do so.” In other words, a website will only be as effective as the content on it in terms of raising funds.

Types of online fundraising

The ways to raise funds online range from established methods such as:

  • giving a one-off donation
  • setting up a regular donation
  • signing up to an event (marathon, trek) and getting sponsorship
  • buying merchandise through an online shop
  • finding out about how to leave a legacy

to the more inventive:

What works?

We asked a few fundraising experts for their views on what works online.

Louise Barker, Digital Marketing Manager of RNIB, observes that online event recruitment (facilitated through JustGiving) has been the biggest area of online success for RNIB. “We’re selling all our of places much further in advance, which means that the event team’s time gets freed up so they can maximise the sponsorship that comes in.”

Rachel Beer singles out Cancer Research UK’s “MyProjects” initiative, which allows donors to choose which type of cancer they want to help “beat”.  “Charities have normally tried to avoid [this approach], because they prefer 'unrestricted funds' (i.e. money they can spend on anything).  However, restricting funds is known to generate a better response offline when an ask for one project is made, so it makes sense to try it online with many options.”

What works for one charity won’t necessarily work for another, though. For instance, a small charity, or one working primarily overseas, would be ill-advised to invest in branded merchandise to sell online if there was no demand for products from its supporters. A charity concerned with terminal illness, meanwhile, should prioritise publicising and promoting legacies online.

What makes for an effective fundraising website?

1. Clarity and ease of use

Make sure it’s instantly clear to supporters where they can donate by having a “donate now” button, and consider a dedicated donation tab (see RNIB case study, below). Then minimise the number of steps and pages involved in the donation or sign-up process, says Rachel Beer.

2. Information

If you’re asking for money, you’ll need to prove it’s being put to good use. Your website should contain information about your aims, work and reputation. It should also contain the kind of engaging content - photos, video, audio, and case studies – that will support your case.  “Carefully consider what you can include that will bring your work to life and help to persuade that visitor to your website to take that extra step from reading to donating... positive outcomes will persuade people to give, not facts and figures,” says Rachel Beer. “Also be aware that you need to clearly articulate the need, as well as how you will improve the situation.”

Finally, be aware that your website is a prime place for information gathering, too. Collect email addresses whenever and wherever you can, advises Louise Barker.

3. Include offline options

Don’t just provide facilities for those giving electronically: ensure your website includes information for people who wish to give by phone or post. And, particularly in the case of legacies, trusts, major donations etc, provide a named contact as donors may want to talk through the process. Finally, remember not to exclude those wishing to donate in other ways: for example, offer the means to register interest in volunteering.

4. Relationship building and promotion

“The web is a great tool for building corporate relationships and thanking trusts and foundations,” observes Sue Fidler, of Sue Fidler Ltd and, while Twitter and Facebook offer greater scope for this kind of vital fundraiser engagement, your website can also play a role. (Don’t forget, of course, that your homepage should be clearly linked to your Twitter and Facebook pages, and vice versa.)

Your charity’s website also offers a means of promoting fundraising events and appeals, whether they take place on- or offline. Further, regularly updated content and news of this kind will keep visitors – and potential donors - coming back, as well as ensure your page features higher on internet searches.

5. Using statistics

Analysing how effective your website really is vital. Tools such as GoogleAnalytics (the free web analysis package) can give you an insight into how your site is used. As Rachel Beer explains, “Once you understand which pages people are visiting most, then you can start to design user journeys. For example, use banners, buttons, or signposting on the most visited pages and the fundraising pages that you want people to visit.”

Case Study: RNIB's online fundraising

The RNIB’s new website was launched in 2009 and, according to Louise Barker, revenue is up 30% year-on-year. In part, says Louise, this is down to better SEO (search engine optimisation) but she also stresses the importance of the site’s new visible and dedicated “donate” tab.

The order of ways to donate on the left-hand navigation of the “donate” landing page was determined using information obtained from GoogleAnalytics, and ranges from one-off donations, through donations made in memory and celebration, to information on payroll giving and offline initiatives such as a home collection box.

“Strategically, we would like to be pushing direct debits more than one-off gifts, but practically more people give one-off gifts online, so that’s why that comes first,” Louise comments, adding that there are multiple links to the single donation form throughout the site.

Louise also stresses the importance of case studies on the site’s fundraising pages: “We’ve tried to highlight human stories, too, as well as all of the more practical, functional bits, and information about how your money helps.”  She adds that “the most clicked-on links are the ones that are that are accompanied by pictures of people.”

Finally, Louise points out that while some visitors to the site’s fundraising landing page will be ready to donate immediately, others will be looking for more information about giving options. “In case people are not sure quite what they want, it’s really important to make sure that contact details are obvious.”

Case Study: Fundraising in practice at Child’s i Foundation

Child’s i Foundation is a “netroots” charity. That’s “a grassroots movement that uses the internet to communicate, organise, and raise money”.

The charity’s Digital Planner, Kirsty Stephenson, explains that by using WordPress (the open source web publishing platform) as the basis for its website, content can be updated with maximum ease.

Engaging audio and visual content is central to the charity’s site: its blog include images from Flickr and videos hosted on YouTube. “This not only keeps the filesizes low on our server but means we can keep all of our videos and images in one place,” says Kirsty.

“In terms of fundraising, we like to think that if people are inspired they will give what they can. We tell people about the charity and inspire them to want to be part of it. Also, we accept whatever people can afford to give in whatever format they want to give (within reason and subject to admin costs!).”

Kirsty here instances the success of charity’s online “Buy a Brick” campaign, based on the idea of the buy-a-pixel Million Dollar Homepage. Although the cost of a virtual brick was £2.50, the average donation was found to be £27.91. The campaign has so far raised £13,288. “It’s about having the choice to put in £2.50 [if that’s all you want to give],” says Lucy Buck, the charity’s founder. She also points to the fact that donors can personalise their online bricks as a way of encouraging greater engagement.

The charity’s recent “Baby Shower” initiative also proved successful. Here, donors were asked to buy furnishings for a children’s home through an online shopping list, created using the online store creator Shopify.com. Once the items were bought, Lucy explains, they were then photographed, tagged, and the donors who had bought each item, thanked. This was time-intensive, but involved minimal costs and little technical expertise.  “Make the proposition tangible,” advises Lucy, “and allow people to join you on your journey.”

Finally, Child’s i Foundation strongly encourages it supporters to set up a personal JustGiving page. Of the £241,000 it has raised this year (2010), £70,000 has been obtained through JustGiving.

Listen to the Child's i foundation birth of a charity podcast to find out more about how the organisation grew. (You'll need to register / log in to listen to this).

Fundraising websites

Commercial fundraising websites - such as JustGiving, Virgin Money Giving, and B My Charity – offer an easy way of signing up supporters and administering donations. There has been debate in the sector recently about the fairness of their fees. But, as Liz Haigh-Reeve, Director of Fundraising and Communications for The Children’s Trust, comments, the value of such sites to smaller charities cannot be underestimated.

“For very small charities, the best thing to do is not to reinvent the wheel, but make best use of other people’s sites.” She instances her own charity’s use of the online memorial charity website MuchLoved (muchloved.com) for tribute funds. “The cost of building a site that’s as good would be extremely high, and it would take us a very long time to get that money back.”

Likewise, Louise Barker believes the functionality and slickness offered by the big providers is worth paying for. Further, they make it easier to offer donors more inventive and personalised ways to give by allowing fundraisers to seek sponsorship for any event, whether an activity, anniversary, celebration and so on.

For more information on the pros and cons, together with a comparison of major sites, see the links below:

Email

“Email is still the workhorse of online fundraising,” says Howard Lake. But, as Rachel Beer explains, it’s vital to get the details right.

“Email is an incredibly useful tool for communicating cost-effectively with supporters, when used well. This means carefully crafting your content with the recipient in mind and testing and monitoring your results to optimise your success (i.e. increase the percentage of supporters that open your emails, click through to web pages or respond to asks). Looking at it another way, it’s about making sure your emails are read and valued.”

As Louise Barker comments, however, the first battle can often be getting recipients to open your message. “For that, the subject line is really important, as is having a ‘from’ address that makes sense to people.” The science of subject lines is far from exact: “Different things work for different types of ask: sometimes we find that long subject lines work better, sometimes more direct ones, sometimes quotes, sometimes ones that sound incredibly boring.”

Once you've tested what subject lines work best with your audience, the goal of your email will be to ensure recipients click through to your website. “We’ve found that we’ve had a lot of success with p.s.’s,” says Louise. “If you include a p.s. in an email, the click-through rate on that p.s. call to action is very high. I think that’s because if people have gone to the trouble of reading the email, then they’re very engaged.”

Don’t go overboard in your efforts, though. “If you’ve got one ask in the email, then it makes sense to try and strip out anything else and not distract people with having other ways to link through.” One link to your website, or two to the same page, is quite sufficient, says Louise.

Getting traffic to your website

No matter how appealing your website, it will only be effective as a fundraising tool if it attracts sufficient traffic. People either get to your website because they already know of you and your work or they come across you in a search. With this in mind, it’s vital that your website employs SEO principles to ensure that it figures prominently in searches.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be a big job as there are lots of different ways to optimise your site so it can be found. To get started, think about SEO under these headings - design of your site, content of your site and popularity of your site.

Search engines index sites automatically. The way your site is designed will play a big part in how easy it is for these 'robots' to access your information. If your site meets accessibility standards, chances are it will be easier for the search engines too.

Having well written, clear, regularly updated content is 99% of SEO. Your site will appear on searches based on the words you use. Have you ever searched for your own website (and your competitors) using words your stakeholders would use? Make sure you use these words in your copy or in the metadata. Use short meaningful page and section titles, meaningful URLs and use GoogleAnalytics (or similar package) to establish which keywords should feature in online copy. 

Pages that are regularly updated will also rank higher than those that aren’t. “Including social media feeds helps with this, as does having a regularly updated latest news section, authoring regular blog posts and enabling comments on these,” says Rachel Beer.

Links to and from your site are very important. Supporters, sponsors and donors should all be encouraged to link through to your website. The number of links to a page plays a big part in determining your search ranking.

Another way to improve traffic to your site is to advertise. Google AdWords is a good way of improving your prominence in searches for particularly popular words or phases.

Find people to help

While certain forms of online fundraising require considerable financial investment (such as the amount of stock needed for an online shop), many more involve relatively few costs (eg a monthly payment to a commercial fundraising site).  However, a lack of technical expertise can be a barrier. Rachel Beer advises charities in this position to take full advantage of the many seminars and talks on digital communications now on offer and of the extensive resources available online.

Graham Hansell, founder of Sitelynx, suggests that charities use their website to start an online time-bank of supporters with technical skills, and Howard Lake recommends making the most of sites such as it4communities.org.uk, which puts charities in touch with IT professionals willing to volunteer their skills.

Kirsty Stephenson of Child’s i Foundation, offers some concluding words of advice: “All of the work done for Child's i Foundation by the digital team is on a pro bono basis, we also try to use free and open source tools. However, in terms of time there is a fair amount of investment required. You get out what you put in. The more you communicate with your supporters and keep them in touch with the workings of the charity, the more you get back.”

Useful links

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Comments (1)

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spirals wrote on Jan 16, 2011 01:08 PM

Great summary article. I expect the next big area of growth will be mobile related fundraising. So far text to give campaigns appear to have had limited success. I think can only be because of telecomms operator charges and people not being used for paying for things on their mobile. But both those things are changing!

Laila
@spirals

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