Better Online Fundraising for Giving Tuesday and Beyond

Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday, which has become an important day for nonprofits to raise awareness about their work and their critical role in our society, and, for many organizations, to see their bank accounts go from red to black for the year.
I’ve been thinking a lot about online fundraising strategies I see nonprofits using, noting the different ways that they ask me for donations and comparing those strategies to my experience with direct mail membership campaigns. I also pay attention to my mindset when I get solicitations — when I feel compelled to give, when I do not, and why.
I have a hunch: I think online fundraising is leaving a lot of money on the table by not taking advantage of some tried-and-true techniques.
Why and when people give is complicated, deeply personal and not always rational, however, so take the points I raise here with a grain of salt. I am speaking from my personal perspective as a donor, as well as someone who spent many years raising money for nonprofits before jumping into a grantmaking role.
Impersonal Vs. Personal
Despite the promise of data and ever more sophisticated digital tools to shed light on the interests of current and potential donors, I find that online fundraising prioritizes frequent, mass messages that are not targeted to the recipients or their specific interests. The hope — it seems — is that if you remind people often enough to donate, eventually they will. Perhaps if you happen to catch them at a moment when they feel compelled to give (e.g. following the presidential election).
I also think there’s a hope, through frequent requests, that you can convince people to give more than once a year, as opposed to following the more traditional annual membership campaign playbook. (I’ll get into monthly / recurring donations in a minute.)
Frequent requests probably work — at least sometimes, and maybe a lot. But I also think the opposite happens. On many occasions, I’ve gotten a solicitation from an organization and stopped to wonder, “Did I give already this year? I don’t know, but if I did, do I want to give again? How much did I give last time?” And I get sort of paralyzed by not knowing when I last gave or how much. So I put off the donation, thinking “I’ll figure it out later.” And often I forget and don’t figure it out later.
If you are raising money, you don’t want people to have these hesitations and questions.
“Thank you for your gift of $25 this time last year. Would you please consider giving another gift this year?” is a message that gives people the information they need. Or even better, “Thank you for your gift of $25 this time last year. Would you please consider increasing your gift to $50 this year?”
For me, the messages that acknowledge at least a minimum level of information about me as a donor (besides “Dear {Name Field}”) are much more persuasive to give again. Remind me that I felt compelled to give before, and let me know that you appreciated it. Let me know when I last donated and how much. And most importantly, ask me to give a little more this time.
This doesn’t require an impossible level of manpower, just better segmenting of your data and a willingness to send out several versions of your solicitations. A willingness to pilot some new ways to personalize your requests — even if to just a handful of donors — could help you learn a lot about ways to improve your fundraising.
About Those Monthly Recurring Donations
I get why there’s a push for them. They provide more support, steadier support, and also ostensibly deepen people’s feeling of investment in an organization or cause. But I see two issues with them as they are currently offered that might be worth thinking through whether there are creative solutions:
1. My employer matches my donations. It is a hassle to submit monthly matching gift requests for recurring donations. From a logistical standpoint, I would much prefer to make a one time donation and submit it for matching dollars, even if, in spirit, I would like to make a monthly recurring gift to organizations I really admire.
(Incidentally, a donor with access to matching gifts should be a flashing neon sign to development staff. Encouraging those donors to give a little more also means getting more matching dollars. It is worth the effort to nurture those relationships.)
2. Many organizations seem content to receive a recurring donation and quietly let that donation keep coming in without reaching out to the donor to understand their interests or gauge whether or not the donor might be willing to increase their recurring donation. I suspect there’s a little bit of fear in reminding people that they’re making a donation (i.e. fear that the donor will cancel their recurring donation).
In Other Words…

All of what I am saying here boils down to relationship building: better appreciation and recognition of all sizes of donations; treating individual donors like they matter; and understanding that there are plenty of people who would be willing to give a little or a lot more if asked to give more.
That said, not every single solicitation has to be customized. It’s just that the opposite is usually true — most solicitations have no customization whatsoever. And people don’t want to feel like ATMs.
A Few Last Words on the DOs and DON’Ts of Fundraising:
If someone makes a donation to your organization and adds a personal note of some kind, please do not ignore that personal note.
Here’s a story: I made a donation to an organization last year after meeting its top executive — a totally delightful and charming person. I sent that person a follow up note to say that I enjoyed the meeting and that I had made a donation out of appreciation for the organization’s work. That person never acknowledged my email or my donation. Guess what? It made me feel kinda crappy. It’s possible the person somehow never received my email or knew about the donation — I don’t rule that out. But I suspect they just never got around to responding. I doubt I’d give again. Also, that organization has never come back and asked me for another donation.
Recently I was trying to branch out with my donations, and researching some organizations I had never given to before. There were at least two organizations — both of them established enough that they aren’t obscure — for which I could not find any IRS information. I looked in Guidestar and other databases to confirm that they were nonprofits and could find nothing. I checked their websites. Nothing. I called and emailed. Never got a response. Guess what? They didn’t get donations.
Do not make these (easily fixable!) mistakes and miss out on donations!
If you are fiscally sponsored, put that information on your website, so that people can look up your fiscal sponsor. If you are a nonprofit, put your tax ID number on your website. Make it as easy as possible for people to know that they can make tax-deductible donations to your organizations. And if someone calls or emails indicating that they want to make a donation, DROP EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING and help them make it!
One last DON’T: for everyone reading this, please don’t send me an email asking for a donation. :)
But, please DO reach out to me or leave comments below if you want to have a conversation about any of the points I’ve made or other ways you think online fundraising could improve.