Sept 2011. Passion, Persistence & Partnership 2nd Edition. Presented by The Institute of Fundraising and NfpSynergy

Passion, persistence, and partnership:
the secrets of earning more online 2nd Edition
Research by
Contents
Foreword: Click to engage - beyond the donate button ................................................2 Executive summary ..............................................................................................................4 Six secrets to earning money online ................................................................................5 Section 1: What is this report all about? ..........................................................................7 Section 2: The internet, interactivity and the public ..................................................10 Section 3: Charities use of the internet and social media ........................................20 Section 4: Charities and earning income: the view from the front line ....................32 Section 5: Conclusion are we looking at new media in the wrong way? ................45
MissionFish
Foreword
Click to engage - beyond the donate button
This report suggests the share of charitable donations arriving through online channels has risen 85% - from 2% to 3.7% - in just 3 years. While online donations remain some way behind online retail (at almost 10% of UK retail), our sample indicates that many charities are beginning to generate real returns from their online activities. At the same time, there are clear signs from our report that charities are taking a more sophisticated and holistic approach to online communication looking beyond the money at how to develop deeper relationships with potential supporters.
Passion
In 2008, we found that some charities had developed small but passionately committed online teams, who were starting to engage with people on a more personal level, providing bite-sized updates and case studies of the charities work rather than simply posting out glossy leaflets or annual reports. Some of them complained of feeling sidelined, and having a hard time explaining the potential of their work to managers. Meanwhile, many small charities were struggling to develop the tools and content they need for a basic online presence. Our new report suggests that the internet is no longer the preserve of a few visionaries and specialists within charities. In the last few years, online teams have become more confident and more integrated with the rest of their organisation. For instance, the number of staff entering content on websites has almost doubled, with an average of 5 people drafting content even in the smaller organisations. Meanwhile, 57% say their senior staff are driving their online strategy, suggesting relatively high levels of leadership from the top. Many of our sample are engaged in major website redesigns, or are launching new social media strategies, indicating a more widespread acceptance of the need to invest in the online world.
Persistence
A few years ago there was evident frustration at the difficulty of converting clicks into cash. Our new case studies suggest that many charities have persisted, and their approaches have evolved. The recent growth of smartphone use and the prevalence of social media (particularly Facebook, and increasingly Twitter), have turned isolated instances of informal online communication into a more significant and genuine dialogue with more people within the charity. We were struck that 71% of our sample now use Facebook to engage with supporters, and 62% use Twitter. Tellingly, more charities say they use the web for education than cite it as a fundraising tool. Half of the Facebook-using charities say it helps them to understand our supporters views, while half of Twitter-using charities hope to see what other organisations are doing. A growing number of charities are seeking out conversations about them, or the issues they care about, and (carefully) joining in. Social media platforms have become tools for listening and learning, not just broadcasting at people. Charities recognise that social media platforms can level the playing field, bringing a statement by the smallest organisation (or a previously unknown individual) to the attention of the worlds media.
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Our case studies suggest that organisations that listen and engage are reaping rewards far greater than those that merely publish and disseminate. Many of our case study charities have been surprised and delighted by the effectiveness of this two-way online communication in recruiting new supporters, and helping some of them develop gradually into the committed fundraisers and advocates of the future.
Partnerships
Partnerships remain crucial. Homegrown platforms such as JustGiving are being joined by new entrants such as BT Donate and Virgin Money Giving, with Everyclick and the Pennies Foundation working to help charities generate funds from ecommerce. Unfortunately, UK charities are still looking with envy at other US-based offerings, such as Google for Nonprofits and (in particular) Facebook Causes, which at the time of writing have yet to reach the UK. Our own experience indicates encouraging growth in charities use of eBay to raise funds. In the past two years, total funds raised through eBay for Charity rose 213% to 7.8m in 2009/10. In the same period, donations from eBay users were up 500% to 3.3m, of which around half has come from microdonations at eBay checkout. Trading by charities on eBay was also up 123%, with 4.6m raised.
The next generation of givers

The biggest opportunity online and one charities cannot afford to miss is the chance to engage the next generation of givers. The pressure to generate return on investment has naturally led many organisations to focus on increasing donation values, rather than recruiting new donors. The proportion of households giving to charity has been gradual decline, and now stands at around 1 in 4, while over-65s now account for 35% all donations, compared to 25% in 1978. Connecting and interacting online with the younger generations, and building new relationships, offers charities the single greatest hope of increasing participation in giving (and indeed campaigning and volunteering) over the long term, and is therefore vital to the health of the sector as a whole. The illustrations and evidence in this report show how many are rising to the challenge, and we hope it will inspire others to follow suit. Our sincere thanks are due to all those who contributed to the report, and to our partners at nfpSynergy who undertook the research and drew out the conclusions.
Lorin May
Head of EU Sustainability and Charity, eBay
Nick Aldridge
CEO, MissionFish UK
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Executive summary
Whats new?
Three years since our first edition - an age in the digital world - much has changed in the way that people and charities are using the internet. In 2008, for instance, the smartphone was the preserve of a small minority. Now nearly half of all mobiles are smartphones, bringing greater functionality and easier access to the internet. Already 40% of smartphone owners use mobile internet each month, and within a few years it is predicted that half of all internet views will be via a mobile handset. At the same time, use of social media has become more widespread, with social networking now accounting for 1 in 8 of all UK internet visits. According to Hitwise, social networking has become the single biggest activity online in the UK, overtaking their Entertainment category in early 2011. Online communication is becoming more immediate, more personal, more local, and available 24/7. Charities are now seizing the opportunity to reach out to their supporters, rather than waiting for visitors to arrive at charity websites. 71% of the charities in our sample use Facebook, with 62% using Twitter and 50% using YouTube. They can now engage far more frequently with their friends and followers, often in real time. They have also learned to approach their online supporters in a holistic way, raising awareness of their work, maintaining their brands, and delivering advice, rather than simply asking for money or selling items. Online fundraising is now generating a similar return on investment to other forms of income generation. Charities raise 170k per staff member in their online fundraising team, ranking between donor recruitment (137k) and major gifts (210k). Our sampling shows that larger charities are able to generate further economies of scale, using the strength of their brands to drive fundraising efficiencies. In our last report, we found that around 2% of donations came from online sources. In our new survey the total is 3.6%, an 85% increase in three years. This suggests charities are showing the hallmarks of success we identified: passion, persistence, and building partnerships. We hope this updated report will be a practical and valuable source of ideas for income generation in the digital world.
Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online
Six secrets to earning money online

Secret 1: Think about your engagement funnel
Once upon a time in the world of charities, life was simple. There were donors and everyone else. The donors were the ones who gave money, and were recorded on the charitys database. But the online world has made this border not so much permeable as shot full of holes. Now charities might imagine their (potential) supporters more like the layers of an onion, or as drops of rain landing on an enormous funnel. At the outer edge of the funnel, people may begin to engage because their online friends like a charitys Facebook page or retweet their message about a charity event. They may move on to visit a friends fundraising page, or even send a text message to support a campaign. Often this seems like Brownian motion: random movement that doesnt lead inexorably in the same direction. However, an engagement funnel continually draws people in to get more involved, and can ultimately help them move from being a mildly interested spectator to an active supporter. The boundaries between donors and non-donors are bridged by a thousand seamless stages. As a result, its becoming harder and harder to plan the communications that an organisation should send to a supporter. This is not only because the definition of a supporter is much less clear, but also because many of these supporters are not on the database at all how and when they engage is up to them not the charity. The charities need to make sure their engagement funnel is effectively directed, and will appeal to the people it needs to attract. For me the real benefit of social media is that you can reach beyond your traditional supporters and spread your message much more broadly. People notice something on Facebook, like it, and we can see from the comments that they never knew about us before but are motivated to find out more. Steve Taylor, League Against Cruel Sports
Secret 2: Help charity advocates do the asking for you

The best internet engagement and fundraising often takes place when the charity hands over the reins of control to the people who support it and lets them do the asking. Individual supporters emotional affinity with the charity can draw in their friends where official communication might be ignored. Event fundraising on the internet is such a success because individuals rather than the charities ask their friends to support them. Whilst this makes it more difficult for organisations to control their messages (never mind ensuring that they conform to brand guidelines), the upside is clear charities can reach far greater audiences, far more effectively, through personal contacts. Charities need to use the web as an interactive tool to target people and their interests and empower them to support the charity and make an impact on fundraising. Its ultimately about enabling supporters to become superheroes for the cause. Tom Latchford, Raising IT
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Secret 3: Destroy the silos, and respond rapidly and coherently

In order to achieve success online, different departments within a charity must work together to create an integrated and seamless engagement funnel. In practical terms this means that the topics an organisation talks about should be consistently rolled out, at the same time, by all departments. Meanwhile, people expect charities to be able to engage with them, and respond to their concerns, ever more rapidly. For many people, the tone and speed with which charities respond online is a key litmus test of their competence and trustworthiness. If charities want to be seen as relevant and attractive by prospective supporters, they will sometimes need to drop everything and respond to issues, and questions, in real time. The truth is, people have always been having these conversations about your organisation, but now you actually have a chance to respond to concerns and open up dialogue. Amy Sample-Ward, NTEN
Secret 4: Every little helps in raising more online

Microdonations are the new black for many fundraisers, and small asks can act as a simple step near the edge of the engagement funnel. Shoppers on eBay have given almost 5 million via eBay Checkout, usually 1 at a time. Organisations such as the Pennies Foundation, Everyclick and Easyfundraising are perfecting the way to get shoppers to give small amounts with the minimum of effort. Wherever internet surfers go and whatever they do to spend money, charities can be there gently suggesting that they might spare a few pence for a good cause.
Secret 5: The smartphone is a supertanker

The rise of the smartphone is radically changing peoples online activities. Whereas people used to go online only once or twice a day, they can now do so throughout the day, wherever they are. They might hear about a charity in the news, ask them a question on Twitter, visit its website and make a donation, all while waiting for the bus. Its for this reason we are so excited by the potential of text donations, because they can be personal, immediate, and make it so easy for people to respond. As smartphone functionality and adoption grows (payment by mobile is skyrocketing), its importance in providing an integrated and compelling experience to potential supporters will only increase.
Secret 6: Dont forget the fundamentals, and leave room for the future
As the recent nfpSynergy report Gimme Gimme Gimme sets out, there are a number of rules on which all good fundraising is based. One inviolable rule is that in good fundraising there is good asking. People will rarely give just because there is need alone. Most giving is done because people react to something: a letter, an email, a phone call, a text message, or a chat with a friend. A key part of the asking is that people are persuaded. Thats why direct mail has a letter and a leaflet and not just a donation form. Its why street fundraisers have a script and know their stuff. Yet visit even the biggest charities websites and often the need to persuade is forgotten. The good news is that when people work out how to translate powerful real world fundraising into powerful virtual fundraising for instance through a compelling viral campaign it works. Perhaps the real challenge is to work out what that translation looks like. Indeed it is a fair bet that many of the best techniques for digital media fundraising are yet to come.
Section 1: What is this report all about?

Introduction
Although this is a second edition we have done more than just tinker with the first edition. We have kept the structure the same but all the case studies have been updated, all the research is new, and all the interviews are new. There are four other sections after this section: Section 2 looks at the wider use of the internet by the public and examines a number of the key trends. It highlights the rise of the social media in the last three years, particularly Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It also looks at the rise of the smartphone, and with it the rise of the mobile internet. Key fact: over 60% of 16-24 year olds have used mobile internet in the last month. Section 3 looks at the use of the internet and social media by charities relating to fundraising and income generation. It demonstrates how extensively charities are using social media and how charities are delegating content updating more widely across the organisation. Key fact: The typical charity is raising 170k per year per staff member working on online Section 4 reports on over 25 interviews with charities and online experts and outlines the themes and insights that they provided. If sections 2 and 3 were quantitative then section 4 is more qualitative, so we have extracted some of the key themes from the interviews. Key quote: Now more than ever people need to be engaged before they will give. Section 5 is our conclusion suggesting that we need to think differently about how we see the online and new media world and where it fits into income generation and supporter development. At the end of each section is a case study. Each one focuses on a different aspect of what an individual organisation is doing in the online world.
Acknowledgements
First of all our thanks must go to eBay for Charity and MissionFish UK for commissioning this report and their continued leadership in the whole area of income generation online. Thanks must also go to all the people who were interviewed for the project their details are set out in Section 4. Reports like this are impossible without all the people who complete our surveys such as Virtual Promise and our fundraising benchmarking study.
MissionFish
Case Study: Beatbullying uses digital media to punch above its weight
Beatbullying is a multi-award-winning UK charity that aims to empower young people to lead anti-bullying campaigns in their schools and local communities, and to build the capacity of local communities to sustain the work. Beatbullyings anti-bullying strategies focus on peer-to-peer education and empowering young people to take action against incidents of bullying and help others combat the problem, both on- and offline. Beatbullying is the only charity in UK delivering full service via a social networking model. Beatbullying built their own social networking platform to provide a site for children to talk to each other and access counselling and therapeutic advice. The site offers almost 24/7 support to children with counsellors available until 2am. The main reason young people visit the site is for help and support with emotional wellbeing, but Beatbullying has had some success developing relationships with young people and encouraging them to spread the word about the organisation and its work through social media and by participating in events. Young people were involved heavily in the website design, and continue to contribute as it evolves. Beatbullying has used both online and more traditional focus groups to gather the opinions of their youth audience. While three years ago their demands were pretty modest, Sarah Dyer, the Director of New Media, has seen with her own eyes the increasingly impressive computer literacy of the younger generation their demands and expectations for the Beatbullying site have certainly grown. A specific challenge for the site was how to make it safe, to protect users and give them the confidence that it was safe to talk openly. The site is closely monitored which enables the organisation to safeguard it from misuse, and to prevent adults accessing it. This monitoring includes a combination of adult moderators and technical moderation to pick up unusual online behaviour patterns. The site has had around 1.25 million unique users since launch, a success which Sarah attributes to the strong sense of community it creates for young people. One young person described it as wave of community coming over you when you need help. Feedback from young people shows that they feel welcomed, supported, nurtured, looked after, and have fun on the site. As well as having someone able to understand how they are feeling and what they are going through: To have a bunch of people understand how you feel is a powerful thing. All young people using the site have private blogs, which they can share with people they know, or even with the general public, and they are encouraged to be talkative and share their opinions. This ethos is supported by the Cyber Mentors - young people trained to spot and pick up new people, give support, and show them around the site. At present there are 11,487 young people waiting to be Cyber Mentors, giving a clear indication that many young people value the help the site has provided and want to do something in return. Communication on the website is very active - 5000 messages per month are shared between counsellors and young people, and this doesnt include instant messages. A benefit of all this communication is the ability to analyse content. Beatbullying can identify recurring themes that young people are keen to discuss, and in this way modify
the website content to better support those in need (all such analysis is anonymous, guaranteeing privacy). Actual fundraising onsite is challenging, particularly since Beatbullyings audience dont have the resources to make donations, and adults are actively discouraged from participating in the site. However, as the organisation matures there is an increasing supporter base the first wave of young adults to benefit from the Beatbullying site are now in a position to donate, and the organisation has been working hard to engage with them. In the last 18 months their donations have increased by 200%. The other fundraising mechanism that is successful is for young people to take part in fundraising activities and events and raise money that way.We have seen that successful engagement funnel from engaged young person to person who fundraises on our behalf. Interview with Sarah Dyer, Director of New Media, Beatbullying
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Section 2: The internet, interactivity and the public

Since the first edition of this report in 2008 the internet has continued to grow in importance in our lives. More people are online than ever before, and there is real growth in the penetration of broadband into peoples homes. Chart 1 shows the way in which broadband is currently in around 70% of peoples homes up from 30% in 2005. In addition, the vast majority of children, particularly in the 12-15 age group, have access to the internet in some form as Chart 2 shows.
Chart 1 Percentage of households that have broadband
It would be a mistake to see the level of penetration alone as a measure of change. Not only are people using the internet differently for example the number of TV programmes being watched online is growing very rapidly, but additionally, the importance of in-home broadband connection is being diluted. This is due to the first of two big trends in the use of the internet: the rise of the use of the internet through mobiles and smartphones, and rapid growth in the use of social media, particularly Facebook. Chart 3 shows how rapid the rise of the mobile internet has been with around 50% of the population having used mobile internet in some way, shape or form. Chart 3 also shows how it is the young in particular who are using mobile internet. Yet in 2007 the number of people accessing the internet via their mobile at least once a week was around 10% and the total was around 25% in mid 2010. The prediction from the Future Foundation is that half the population will be using mobile internet weekly by 2015 compared to 2009 when around 14% used mobile internet weekly. Indeed the Future Foundation prediction looks a little cautious based on the data in Chart 3.
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Chart 2 Childrens access to the internet by age
Chart 3 Frequency of internet use via mobile phone by gender, age and social grade
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But it isnt just the frequency of mobile internet use that is surprising. It is the way the smartphone has contributed to the explosion in the breadth of things that people do with their mobile phones. Chart 4 demonstrates the differences in functionality and usage between smartphone users and mobile phone users in 2010. Smartphone users take more photos, listen to music more, browse the web more and outperform across all the categories of functionality as the gap between the orange and dark blue bars in Chart 4 shows.
Chart 4 Mobile phone and smartphone activities used at least once a week
It would be easy to imagine that this is a growth in the use of phones not the internet - and that is partly true. But of course a photo taken on a smartphone is more easily added to a Facebook page. If a smartphone user wants to get more tracks from a favourite artist then they can do this more easily with a smartphone. So the increase in functionality of a smartphone and the ease of use drives more online usage. And one area that it particularly drives online usage is in social media. Chart 5 shows the explosion there is no other word for it in the use of social media.
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Chart 5 People participating in social networking websites as % of population
At least 25% of the population currently use some kind of social media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn or a number of other sites. Although herein lies one of the other big changes since the first version of the report when Facebook and MySpace appeared to be strong competitors. Now it is clear that Facebook is the winner. One survey of social media users from 2010 showed that over 90% of all those who used social media used Facebook and this was true across all ages and social grades. Even Twitter and YouTube, both of which have a high level of use, are at a take-up of 20% or less amongst social media users. Facebook reigns supreme, which is why, as we shall see in the next section, so many charities focus their social media attention on Facebook.
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Case Study: Using social media to grow, retain and revive relationships with past supporters
ReachOut! is a mentoring charity working with children in deprived areas to raise aspirations and help them grow in character and competence. Their volunteer mentors 98% of whom are university students support youngsters in the key areas of interpersonal and academic skills. Since September 2010 ReachOut! has worked to establish a firm position for itself on social media sites. A key aim is to rekindle their relationship with former volunteers they have a database of around 1000 former mentors but there has been little contact with them since their volunteering ended. They envisage a three-stage journey for encouraging these former mentors to become supporters: 1. Re-establish contact through Facebook, getting them to become fans of the ReachOut! page 2. Encourage them to get involved through events or sponsorship of others participating in fundraising events 3. Translate this ad hoc support into regular donations A basic tip Hannah Christie, Volunteer and Recruitment Manager offers is to use a Facebook page rather than a normal Facebook profile1 its easier to brand the page to fit with your organisation. They are making slow but steady process increasing their fans, and the focus currently is using the page for day-to-day communications, thanking supporters and mentors, and highlighting events and achievements through photos. The Facebook page is also the route most people follow to get to the ReachOut! blog, which was launched a few months ago. The blogs key aims are to communicate impact and make our volunteers feel good, Hannah explains. Communicating the impact of your work is something all charities need to do, and we think that a blog is a great way to do this, using the experiences and photos of our volunteers. They also use the blog to communicate the impact of their work to potential funders we do a lot of service provision, but before the blog we had no way to constantly update volunteers, supporters, funders and potential funders about our events and the impact of our work. They are currently redesigning their website, and plan to better link their website, blog and social media presence. As with the blog, reaching out to potential funders is a particular aim. Our current website is fine in terms of connecting up with our volunteers, but we need a website which will be slick and impressive for corporate donors too. Hannahs recommendation for a website redesign be sure to consult people who visit your website to find out what they need. What about the challenges and downsides of the online tools ReachOut! is using? Facebook is great for us, especially for connecting with young people, but of course
If you want to change your Facebook profile into a Facebook page without having to start over from scratch, then follow these tips from Beth Kanter: http://www.bethkanter.org/fb-profile-conversion/
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Facebook can change things, and this can be frustrating if they are working well for you. For example, they are not going to allow you to develop tabs using FBML any longer and this means Im not going to be able to customise our Facebook page as easily as I could in the past. As for mobile phones, ReachOut! is currently focusing on using them to connect up with their student volunteers. We like to remind our volunteers about meetings and training sessions they have agreed to attend. Using SMS to do this is the obvious choice, since we know how inseparable they are from their phones. They use an online text service to do this. Interview with
Hannah Christie, Volunteer & Recruitment Manager, ReachOut!
The most visited charity websites

According to online competitive intelligence service Experian HitWise UK, in March 2011 only one in every 2750 online visits was made to a charity website: 0.036% of all UK internet visits that month. Furthermore, the 2010 Office of National Statistics Internet Access Bulletin showed that just 12% of UK adults who use the internet regularly use it to donate to charity. This ranks it 17th out of 18 online activities. The most popular activities are emailing (90%), followed by shopping activities related to goods and services (75%) and travel and accommodation (63%). In the context of the internet as a whole, charity websites start looking pretty small. But taken out of this constantly expanding arena and focusing particularly on charity websites themselves, the picture looks more encouraging. Data from nfpSynergys 2011 Charity Awareness Monitor shows that over a third (36%) of people who have used the internet in the past six months visited a charity website during this time. So, what are the most visited charity websites? The 2010 Experian Hitwise Winners for their market share in the two Community categories were:
Humanitarian
1. www.sportrelief.com 2. www.oxfam.org.uk 3. www.oxfam.org.uk/shop 4. www.redcross.org.uk 5. www.nspcc.org.uk 6. www.unicef.org.uk 7. www.barnardos.org.uk 8. www.england.shelter.org.uk 9. www.childline.org.uk 10.www.christianaid.org.uk
Organisations
1. www.rspb.org.uk 2. www.nationaltrust.org.uk 3. www.raceforlifesponsorme.org 4. www.energysavingtrust.org.uk 5. www.rspca.org.uk 6. www.raceforlife.org 7. www.dogstrust.org.uk 8. www.rhs.org.uk 9. www.dogpages.org.uk 10.uk.freecycle.org
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In both of these categories, similarities can be drawn between the charities. Several are events or participation-oriented charities, like Sport Relief and Race for Life that attract online visitors who wish to participate or sponsor someone. Emergency and disaster response charities also receive a large number of hits, no doubt owing to their widely publicised campaigns during humanitarian crises. Also topping the lists are charity websites that sell something or provide a service, illustrating a way in which charities can adapt their websites to fit in with popular online activities. Oxfam consistently tops the Experian Hitwise UK charity lists, with consumers happy to shop from the website. Similarly, Freecycle makes the top 10 as an organisation offering people the opportunity to trade goods online. Charity websites offering services also populate the winners lists, from Childline and the Energy Savings Trust to dog charities offering pet advice and dog adoption. Finally, there are the charity websites that tap into the popular activity of researching holidays and travel with The National Trust and Royal Horticultural Society websites offering ideas for days away and weekend breaks.
The next decade of web use

Drawing on the views of experts, here are our predictions for how the internet will change over the coming decade. The convergence of TV and the internet. We already know how products like Sky+ and BBC iPlayer have changed viewing habits. As broadband speeds improve and technology develops expect the TV to become more and more like the internet and vice versa. This will mean the end of TV scheduling as we know it, with watch anytime TV and the rise of internet TV on your mobile. The internet will remain a perfect medium for rapid trends such as social networking, wikis, internet share-offerings and 3G phones taking off (or crashing). The challenge is to see which trends will endure and which are just hyperbole. Charities that invested significant time in Second Life or Google Buzz will struggle to generate returns. Will new social media sites have taken off by next year? Charities face the challenge of investment to keep up, not to be left high and dry when the next big thing arrives. Last time we talked about Myspace and Facebook, and now we just talk about Facebook. Next time will be talking about Google+ or something completely new? The web will only increase in its interactivity and its personalisation. So the more that sites offer the ability for people to make the internet their own (Facebook) or offer easy access to a mass audience (YouTube, eBay) or make something happen with ease (Google, Tesco groceries), the better. People wont visit sites because they have had millions invested in them, but because they do stuff that people find useful, cool or exciting. The web has the power to be a leveller between big and small. The advent of web 2.0 with its emphasis on interaction and user-driven content will remain the kind of place where the small can flourish. Its worth pointing out that most of the biggest, best-known websites were created not by big companies but by individuals with an idea: eBay, Yahoo, Google, Facebook and so on. Similarly, blogs have given a prominence to the (often frankly idiosyncratic) writings of individuals who say what they want to say. Meanwhile, companies struggle to get their corporate blogs to be read. Nobody can escape. Ask any professional about their working lives and increasing numbers will talk about how the combination of mobile and laptop has meant that they are never out of touch with their work. Sometimes this is a good thing. A boring meeting becomes an opportunity to catch up on emails or tweet on just how boring it is! A holiday becomes an opportunity to never relax.
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The mobile is in the ascendant. The mobile is now the most extraordinarily versatile piece of technology. Indeed in the period of time since the first edition we have gone from smartphones being owned by a small percentage of the population to nearly half of all handsets in the UK being smartphones. It wont be too long before the majority of internet pages are viewed by smartphone and not PC/laptop. What was once purely for making and answering phone calls has become a music player, a radio, an organiser, a tiny laptop, a GPS positioner, a games station, a camera and a video recorder. In the first edition we predicted that the mobile might need a report of its own and so that has proved: Sending out an SMS is already in its second edition and free to download from www.nfpsynergy.net.
Case Study: Listening is key to building relationships online

AICR the Association for International Cancer Research is a Scotland-based charity with international reach. From their office in St Andrews, Fife the team of 25 manages the organisation, which in two rounds of grants each year funds cancer research projects around the world. AICR has been rather ahead of the curve in the digital space Jack Cumming was recruited as their e-commerce manager eight years ago. One of his key tasks back then was to turn the organisations website into a tool that could be used for fundraising. While the website is very different now, its within the social media space over the past few years that Jack has seen the most interesting and promising developments. Two of the 25 staff members focus specifically on the digital space, and Jack explains that he rarely spends his time updating the website, instead spending a substantial amount of time using social media tools. His assistant splits her time about 30/70 between the website and social media. So why the lean towards social media? Jack highlights two key reasons firstly, charities need to engage with supporters and potential supporters where those people already spend time, rather than expecting them to visit your dedicated online space. Another reason is that most visits people make to your website will be anonymous ones while you can track webstats, you get no personal information about these people. The situation is very different on sites like Facebook and using tools such as Twitter not only will you have the name of the person, you will also have access to a rich amount of information about their interests and network of friends. And, importantly, you have a channel with which to start a conversation. AICR uses a variety of online tools to monitor their social media presence, such as klout.com. The great thing about these tools, Jack says, is that you can go beyond counting how many followers you have and get insight into who is paying close attention to what you are saying and who is talking about you online. Once AICR has identified who these influencers are Jack and his colleague can start to directly communicate with them and develop the relationship further. So how do you engage with people online? Jack highlights how important it is to take a softly softly approach to building relationships online. If you just join a forum and start saying, look at us were great, you should visit our website then alienation, not engagement, will be the result. If Jack finds an online forum, blog, or Facebook group that is discussing issues or events relevant to AICR then hell join the discussion, commenting and building up his involvement over a period of up to a year. Only later will he point
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people towards AICRs website or encourage them to sign up to his website, confident by then that the other online participants will trust that his involvement is genuine. Listening is another key part of AICRs way of engaging people online. Using Twitter to connect with people doing events fundraising is a good example of this. Often the first we hear about someone raising money for AICR is when they send us the money afterwards, but with Twitter we are able to keep our ear open about events, and then get in touch with participants and encourage them. For example, a couple of people have raised money for AICR by walking across the USA, but with one fundraiser, we heard about it online, contacted him and were able to provide support and encouragement. Not only that, but we kept people updated via the social networks and blogs and helped him raise almost 50,000. Others doing the same who arent connected to us online have not been able to raise such large amounts. Similarly, if they notice people on Twitter are taking part in events for other charities they will wish them luck, and on some occasions this develops into a stronger relationship after wishing one woman luck with a charity run, she started to engage with us on Twitter. In 2012 shes planning to run the Virgin London Marathon and raise money for us with her husband and two friends. If you engage with people online, and start a good conversation they can eventually become advocates bringing in their family and friends as supporters too.
Of course, you need to accept the unpredictability of online relationships. It takes time to build up strong relationships online, and you cant be guaranteed that people will ever begin supporting you. But support can also emerge from the strangest quarters. I noticed via a Google Alert that a Leica camera enthusiasts group was planning to create a coffee table photograph book, encouraging people to submit photos and donating 10 for each photo. The forum members had chosen AICR as the recipient of the fundraising. We thought it was a great idea, so we tweeted about it, encouraging people to submit photos and purchase the book once it was published. And although Leica Cameras had not been officially involved with the project, they learned about it (through Twitter, naturally) and pledged a donation also meaning that this online conversation raised a total of over 13,000 for AICR. What advice does Jack have for charities keen to start engaging people through social media?
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Take some time to get to know the tools. Use alerts, which can tell you when people are talking about a specific issue. You can then see if the conversation is relevant to you. Take it slowly dont jump into a conversation happening online. Listen to what others are saying, and slowly develop your presence. That way people will begin to trust you as a member of the community rather than look on you as on outsider. So how much is AICR raising online? Its still a small proportion of our total income, but its growing rapidly. And, importantly, its allowing us to raise money at the international level. We fund research projects internationally so a real advantage of online tools such as Facebook and Twitter is that we can fundraise at that level too. What about the challenges of social media tools? Jack identifies admitting when something isnt working as one challenge. We put a lot of effort into setting up blogs on our website, and forums for people taking part in our events. But we realised it wasnt working it was like inviting people to a party and only one person being there. Recently we closed them down, and now just direct people to, for example, the Facebook page of our marathon runners. Youve got to go where the party is already happening, and not try to create something separately. Just look at many large brands such as Starbucks and Coca Cola advertising on TV today. They arent displaying their website addresses on the ad they show their Facebook pages. While a company or charity website is vital in many ways, its on sites like Facebook where people are already spending their time that you can engage them and start encouraging them to support you. Interview with
Jack Cumming, e-Commerce Manager, AICR
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Section 3: Charities use of the internet and social media

nfpSynergy has been running its Virtual Promise surveys about how charities are using the internet since 20002. For the 2011 survey we took the decision to do a major restructure and revamp of the survey. This was for two reasons. Firstly, we wanted to have one survey that covered the internet, social media and mobile phones. Secondly, we wanted to take the opportunity to focus on those questions which are of the greatest use. A number of questions were taken out and a number were added most notably on social media. The survey took place in the spring of 2011. Respondents were given the opportunity to answer or skip over each of the tranches of questions: on the internet, on social media and on mobiles. For this reason the number of respondents for each section is different. The mobile questions have been reported in the sister report to this Sending out an SMS so they are not covered here in any detail.
Partnerships with external suppliers and services

As the title of this report suggest one of the key ways we believe that charities can increase their income from the world of new media is through partnerships. So for the first time we asked respondents to tell us who it was they were partnering with to raise money. Chart 6 shows the results.
Chart 6 Popularity of online tools for charities
The back catalogue of results from the Virtual Promise is available on request by emailing insight@nfpsynergy.net. A full set of results from this survey is also available
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Top of the partnership list, with 71% using it, is Facebook. We realise that partnership is not always quite the right word in the context of online suppliers but in the absence of something better it will have to do. Twitter and YouTube are second and third behind Facebook with 62% and 50% respectively. JustGiving is fourth on the partnership list with 40% of organisations partnering with them. Looking at the rest of the list it is a mixture of the general partners LinkedIn, Blogs, Flickr etc and the specific online income generating partners such as eBay for Charity and Virgin Money Giving. Overall Chart 6 shows the breadth and vibrancy of the potential opportunities for charities if they want to raise income online. Its also worth reflecting how this chart might have differed if we had asked the same question three years ago (which sadly we didnt). Facebook and certainly Twitter wouldnt have been as high on the list of partners. Virgin Money Giving didnt exist and nor did the Big Give at least in its current form. And Bebo and MySpace might well have been higher on the list. And the poster boy for the mercurial nature of the work of social media must be Second Life that virtual world that was so popular five years ago. It now has just 1 million members and has been comprehensively eclipsed by Facebook and Twitter.
How is social media being used by charities?

Given that the top three partners for charities were social media sites Facebook, YouTube and Twitter we asked people to tell us how they were using these social media platforms as part of their work. These results are shown in Chart 7. The interesting thing to observe from the responses is that charities tend to use these social media sites as alternative websites or broadcast media. Around 83% of charities use Facebook and Twitter for general communications with our supporters and 77% use both to communicate about our campaigns. In contrast, around 50% of charities (55% for Facebook and 44% for Twitter) use these two media to understand our supporters views. Given that social media, particularly Facebook, is so interactive its tempting to wonder whether this facet of the online world is passing some charities by. Its also worth noting that Facebook is the most used social media in every category except to see what other organisations are doing where Twitter comes top with 49% of respondents vs 33% for Facebook. Another feature of social media use is that YouTube is always the lowest scoring of the three. Perhaps we didnt put in a category that absolutely captured how charities are using the site.
Chart 7 Ways in which organisations use Facebook, YouTube and Twitter
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Staffing levels for websites, social media and mobile work

Every organisation wants to work out whether it is investing at the right level in the digital world. Chart 8 shows the average number of people who work (volunteers or staff) on websites, social media and mobile telephony and also the number of people who enter content for these websites and social media. Chart 8 also shows the average for three different sizes of organisation: less than 1 million, 1-10 million and above 10 million.
Chart 8 Average number of staff and volunteers working on different aspects of charities new media work
Overall the larger the organisation, the more people work on their websites and social media. Since 2008 there appears to have been a growth in the number of people entering content overall on websites and a reduction in the number of people working on websites. This perhaps indicates that increasingly digital managers are evolving strategies that devolve responsibility for content across the organisation.
The importance and impact of the internet for charities and their work
Chart 9 shows the relative importance of the internet for different aspects of charities work. At the top of the list is communications, followed by information/education and branding and marketing coming third in overall importance. Fundraising is around the middle of the spectrum with 41% saying the internet is very useful compared to 70% for communications.
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Chart 9 Usefulness of web presence for areas of work
One of the paradoxes of the relationship between charities and the internet is that while the internet has been transformational in the commercial sector it is not obvious that it has had the same effect on charities or perhaps it is just doing so more slowly. Nowhere is this clearer than in the importance of online retail (think eBay, Amazon or John Lewis online to name but a few) which has radically changed, bringing speed and convenience to the fore, and is now influencing (indeed overlapping with) the offline world. While almost half of charities have found the web useful for online trading, naturally many more are focusing on its role in communication about their causes. Our report illustrates how their charities communication strategies are evolving as a result, and the transformation while not as rapid - may be no less profound. Chart 10 shows how the internet is fitting in with some of the biggest issues that affect charities. The data demonstrates how the online world has become a critical part of charities brand and reputation management as we saw in Chart 9. This is ironic given one of the challenges of social media is the extent to which brand management becomes more difficult. This is because it is harder to maintain visual identity in social media and harder to keep content on-message (one charity with a real-time Twitter feed in its reception discovered this the hard way as rude tweets about it appeared for all its visitors to see).
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Chart 10 Strategic importance of the internet to organisations
It may be for these reasons that senior staff are so heavily involved in the internet nearly 60% of respondents said their senior staff were involved to some degree. While this appears positive, if you go back to our first three surveys in 2000, 2001 and 2002 the percentage who strongly agreed with that same statement was 35%, 32% and 25% respectively compared to 18% in this survey. However this may be a positive finding, suggesting that senior staff are gradually becoming more confident with the online world, and allowing their grip on the reins to loosen.
Promoting and measuring web usage

Websites are there to be used by visitors, so one of the key tasks of any web team is to drive traffic to the website. Since the Virtual Promise surveys began we have asked respondents how they have marketed their website. Chart 11 shows that social media (used by 69%) and search engines (used by 59%) are the two dominant website promotion tools. In this sense charities have come a long way since the beginning of the Virtual Promise surveys.
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Chart 11 How organisations market their websites online
Can you guess what the main methods of promoting websites were in the early days of the Virtual Promise surveys? Used by over 90% of respondents in each of the first three VP surveys it was of course putting a domain name on printed materials. Thankfully, website marketing has progressed since then (although we didnt include it as a prompt this time so maybe it would have been top if we had, but we doubt it). Indeed it is striking how many of the popular marketing methods were offline rather than online in the early days. Chart 12 shows how website usage is measured. While the way that marketing websites has changed considerably in the last ten years, the way that usage is measured has not. In our latest survey, hits and unique visitors are the two top measurement mechanisms with 62% and 64% respectively and in the 2002 survey the top two measurement mechanisms were unique visitors and hits with 70% and 65% respectively.
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Chart 12 Measuring website useage
Another area we have been tracking since the early days of our survey is the issue of barriers to web usage and development. The results to this are shown in Chart 13. The principal barriers are now fairly consistent: money and time. 55% of people say they are held back by lack of budget and 51% of people say they are held back by lack of time. There is then a big drop before the next major set of barriers including systems integration at 28% and being reactive, not proactive, at 26%.
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Chart 13 Barriers to web usage
Online income generation

Every few years nfpSynergy carries out a benchmark of fundraising performance. The most recent was started in 2010 and completed in early 2011 and the data is therefore relevant to this report and comparable to the benchmarking data used in the 2008 edition. The headline figure for the percentage of income that comes from online sources for the two surveys is instructive. In the first edition, using 2007 data, the percentage of voluntary income that came from online was 2%. By this survey in late 2010/early 2011 the percentage of income that came from online had increased to 3.7%. This represents an 85% increase in the three years between the two surveys which demonstrates the steady progress that charities are now making in integrating online to their income generation strategies. Beneath this headline figure lie some interesting details. Looking at the ratio of income to expenditure for various individual income sources we can see in Chart 14 that the internet is neither the most cost-effective nor least cost-effective of the income generating sources from individuals (its also worth bearing in mind that online effectively is both recruiting donors and looking after them). The headline median figure is 2.4 (median being when all the data points are lined up and the middle point is the median) including staff salaries. The comparable mean figure is 5.5 (all the ratios added up and divided by the number of data points) which tells us that there are a small number of organisations doing very well with online and so the mean ratio is twice the median income.
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Chart 14 Income/spending ratios
To dig deeper into the data, we analysed income generated per staff member. All the data points for this metric are shown in Chart 15. The shape of this graph is as interesting as the specific data. There are a number of organisations on the left hand side of the graph who are earning a fairly low amount per staff member. This is fine providing there is good reason to believe that there will be an improvement in future years and the strategy is to build up future income. On the right side of the graph are those organisations who are really earning well above the average per staff member. Overall, the median income is 170k per staff member and the mean is 296k per staff member (please remember if you only have half a person working on online income generation they would only be expected to earn half the median income figure).
Chart 15 Amount raised per staff member fundraising on the internet/online
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Chart 16 puts the data in Chart 15 into a broader context against other sources of income with the mean and median income for all the charities in the survey and for all those organisations who took part who had an income of more than 10 million (in yellow). This data shows that online income holds up well compared with other sources of income. It raises more per head than major donors and recruitment but less than donor retention and not surprisingly considerably less than legacy income. If anybody were looking for an example of how large charities use their brands and economies of scale to raise more income, Chart 16 is for you. In every single metric the larger charities raise more per head than all the charities in the sample and this is as true for online generation as for any other category.
Chart 16 Amount raised per staff member
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Case Study: A collaborative organisation for the collaborative era of social media
Child's i Foundation is a small charity that works with vulnerable mothers and children in Uganda. With the aim of ending child abandonment in Uganda, Child's i Foundation set up a transitional babies home, a prevention service to support vulnerable families and established a social work department to find every child a family. As an organisation, Childs i Foundation is reliant on its community of supporters, not just for fundraising and helping finance many of their projects, but on volunteers lending their skills to run campaigns and contribute to the website. For Kirsty Stephenson, the internet is the perfect tool to build and support this network. The most effective method of engagement we believe is empowering our community of supporters by establishing a culture of transparency, creating meaningful dialogue and encouraging contribution by whatever means and in whatever quantity. The importance Childs i Foundation places upon gaining the trust and encouraging genuine dialogue is evident in the care they take in researching and monitoring their online community. In addition to regularly asking for feedback on their website and social network platforms, supporter engagement and involvement has been present since the start of Childs i Foundation in 2008. The charity was launched with a series of meet ups organised online to facilitate people sharing their ideas, and the business plan was written with the supporter responses to a series of videos the committee posted on YouTube about their work in Uganda. The charity maps reactions to their Facebook and Twitter accounts with a plug-in called Disqus. They also monitor the regularity and type of interaction across their platforms. For the upcoming annual report, they are planning to request ideas from their community for what the charity should do next and which areas it should prioritise. The strong community that has built up around Childs i Foundation has been facilitated by the use of online social network sites, including Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Flickr. The principle benefit according to Kirsty is having the ability to quickly and easily interact with supporters in an environment they regularly visit on their own terms rather than always needing to drive them to a website or send emails to keep them connected to the organisation and community. Once again, consideration for the community and a desire to engage them in ways they most prefer is evident. The charity also tries to avoid flooding people with information and updates that threaten to annoy or alienate supporters, becoming white noise. A principal measure of how successful the charity has been at engaging people online is the success of their campaigns. Run on zero budget, these campaigns demonstrate the power of the social media machine when harnessed and combined with a loyal supporter network. In 2010, Childs i Foundation ran a campaign to raise 10,000 in 48 hours for a life-saving operation for baby Joey - an abandoned baby who had been recently adopted. The aim was to spread the word across all our available online platforms and social media channels, giving our supporters the choice and opportunity to help us raise the funds for life-saving
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surgery. Within 38 hours, the target had been reached. Childs i Foundation reached out across all of their social media platforms, setting up a JustGiving page, sharing the link on Twitter to 2,726 followers, posting on their Facebook page and in the Facebook group, as well as subsidiary pages set up for various campaigns.
The charity sent an emergency appeal out to its 1,025 newsletter recipients asking for support, blogged about the appeal on the website and posted three videos on YouTube a background story about Joey and his adoptive parents, a video updating people on the situation and thanking people for their support and the final video following up Joeys story and his return home after the surgery. As the media coverage at the time noted, the team at the foundation should be praised for its achievements, not just in this [Joeys] case but its overall work and approach to social media. Every charity should note how this dynamic organisation has harnessed social media and everything it stands for to such a great effect. (Jude Habib, Third Sector) The focus on the online supporter community is an integral part of Childs i Foundation from website navigation designed with an understanding of the process supporters will go through to engage with the charity, to the optimisation of social media platforms to really engage with supporters. The internet provides us with the opportunity to share and exploit our most powerful asset our story. We are able to keep our supporters updated using video, photos, blog posts and status updates. Online social tools allow for more than broadcast, though; by definition theyre interactive and allow us to easily invite comment and conversation from our network. A critical part of the offering is that the entire proposition of the charity is collaborative, and the technology should reflect and support this.
Interview with Kirsty Stephenson, Digital Planner, Childs i Foundation
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Section 4: Charities and earning income: the view from the front line
In 2008 the first edition of this report detailed the passion, persistence and partnership that are all key to successful online fundraising. Fast-forward three years and we have spoken to a fabulous bunch of people from across the charity sector about how they are navigating the online world, how social media has changed their work, and what tips and warnings they want to pass on to their colleagues in the not-for-profit world. Here are our interviewees:
Name Andrew Cates Becky Marshall Ben Matthews Bertie Bosredon Howard Lake Jon Parsons Jude Habib Karolina McIlroy Sarah Dyer Steve Bridger Sue Fidler Tom Latchford Jack Cumming Julia Hancock Hannah Christie Danielle Atkinson Rob Dyson Jo Johnson Rosi Jack Phil Trayhorn Neil Rooney Raj Dasani Steve Taylor
Role Chief Executive Digital Marketing and Communications Manager Founder Head of New Media Managing Director and Founder e-Communications Manager Founder & Director Online Fundraising Manager Director New Media Builder of Bridges Director CEO e-Commerce Manager Development Manager Volunteer and Recruitment Mananger Head of Digital & Individual Giving PR Manager Founder Communications & Enterprise Support Manager Chairperson Digital Fundraising Leader Fundraiser Head of Campaigns & Communications
Organisation SOS Children's Villages UK Dyslexia Action Brightone Breast Cancer Care Fundraising UK Ltd The Woodland Trust Sounddelivery The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association Beatbullying nfp2.co.uk Sue Fidler Ltd Raising IT AICR IPSEA Reach Out! Merlin WhizzKidz Jellymould Creative Emmaus UK Brixham Battery Heritage Centre Concern Worldwide Crisis League Against Cruel Sports
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Jane van Zyl Nicola Peckett Amy Sample Ward Jo Johnson Stuart Witts Kirsty Stevenson
Head of Operations Head of Communications Membership Director Digital Marketing Manager Social Media Manager Digital Planner
Samaritans Samaritans NTEN London Symphony Orchestra Marie Curie Cancer Care Childs i Foundation
Advocates finding and nurturing them

In the last edition of this report we talked about ensuring you dont treat all donors in the same way, and suggested treating your best donors as stewards or messengers for your organisation. Our 2011 interviews have prompted us to take this suggestion even further. Repeatedly our interviewees talked about the importance of nurturing online relationships with key supporters. Because of the way that social media works, these people can become advocates for your charity, whether its utilising their networks to raise impressive amounts for a 5k run, or tweeting about the great work your organisation does. By nurturing a relationship with a specific individual you can tap into their own networks too. A good example of this is the case of a woman who did a charity run for AICR, and, after their encouragement, went on to run the London Marathon for the charity and brought in her husband and friends to run for the cause too. This can also work for smaller charities. Phil Trayhorn, Chair of the Brixham Battery Heritage Centre, illustrates how their volunteers and visitors post their own videos shot at Battery events on Facebook and YouTube and disseminate them among their friends. These volunteers are often young and through publicising their involvement with the centre have drawn in more young volunteers and visitors. Steve Taylor also explained how Facebook is enabling the League Against Cruel Sports to engage with people they probably would never have come into contact with otherwise. For me, the real benefit of social media is that you can reach beyond your traditional supporters and spread your message much more broadly. People notice something on Facebook, like it, and we can see from the comments that they never knew about us before but are motivated to find out more. By encouraging advocates of your organisation to spread the word, you can reach ever-larger numbers of people. However, our interviewees were keen to highlight that making an advocate requires the investment of time. Tom Latchford thinks there are multiple stages in the journey: 1) make an initial connection; 2) encourage people to sign-up, e.g. on Facebook or Twitter; 3) get people to take action on your behalf, increasing this over time from small actions such as answering a survey through to volunteering time; 4) support the individual in becoming an advocate of your work amongst their own networks.
Attention to detail matters more than you might think

A really interesting insight from our interviews was that its worthwhile paying close attention to detail, in particular in emails and on websites. According to Andrew Cates, from SOS Childrens Villages, subtlety is a big deal, and can make a massive difference in economic performance. A few years ago they made a small change in wording on their website which overnight resulted in a twenty-fold increase in donations. He noted changing your text from the third to first person and making photographs personal by ensuring the person is looking directly at the camera as small changes that can make a big difference. The great thing about online fundraising is that it is easy and cheap to monitor what is/is not working on your website. Whether its Google Analytics, built-in tools offered by websites like
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Facebook, or reporting features offered by mass email providers such as DotMailer, there are a variety of tools that can help you answer questions such as: how long does someone spend on our website before donating? Were people more likely to read our emails when we included a question in the subject line? Danielle Atkinson from the international development charity Merlin has found these tools invaluable. Indeed, when we asked her what she considered to be the next big thing in online fundraising she had an interesting response: We need to focus on doing the things that work better. And for Merlin that means focusing on improving their emails by monitoring open rates, click-through rates, and what kind of emails lead to donations.
A golden era for feedback

A major concern often raised in connection with social media is reputation management. What if someone makes a negative comment online? How should we react if a member of staff makes a mistake in a tweet? Conversations with our charity sector gurus suggested that if someone raises such concerns, its best to turn the idea around and ask, did we ever have access to such immediate, varied and direct feedback from our supporters, potential supporters and detractors? The truth is, people have always been having these conversations about your organisation, explains Amy Sample Ward, but now you actually have a chance to respond to concerns and open up dialogue. Indeed, its now easier than ever to get feedback from people about what they think of your work, events, communications and campaigns. Various experts we spoke to suggested testing out any new digital tools with users before launching them. For example, you might want to ask some supporters to try out using your website before you launch it. Dont be afraid to ask people what they think. People are generally happy to help and if nobody responds to your requests that is perhaps a good indication that you need to improve your supporter relationships, recommends Amy. Indeed, some charities have used this feedback idea to interesting effect. Childs i Foundation is relatively young (established in 2008), and when they went to Uganda to work on their organisations business plan, they decided to upload a YouTube video and Facebook updates each day of the trip, and asked their supporters for feedback and suggestions on what should be included in their plan an innovative idea for putting supporters right at the heart of what you do. At nfpSynergy we often talk about the power of pub facts, those nuggets of information about your charity that can add some shine to your organisation for donors and potential donors. Great pub facts include: how many people your organisation helped last year, a personal story about a donor who has fundraised in an interesting way, or money-saving techniques you use to ensure supporters money gets to the cause. And tools such as Facebook and Twitter are the perfect forum to share these pub facts in an easy and engaging way. Why doesnt your chief executive tweet next time shes travelling: On the train to a meeting with our Glasgow office. Our charity saves money by never allowing first-class travel. We know from our research with the general public that transparency matters donors want to know how charities are spending their money. However, we also know from focus group research that very few people read the charity annual reports that provide this kind of information. Social media tools (and perhaps even email footers) enable you to prove your transparency in an accessible way.
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Investing in engagement
The past few years have seen a flurry of excitement about the potential of social media. Many readers of this report will probably remember when Facebook took off in the UK and you would get multiple friend requests each day. However, the initial excitement about the potential of social media for charities has been replaced by a certain degree of scepticism can much money really be raised through Twitter, Facebook and co? The answer is a complicated yes. Amy Sample Ward drew our attention to some interesting research amongst 20-35 year olds in the USA. The 2011 Millennial Donors survey shows that while people in that age group want to find out information about an organisation through social media, when it comes to making a donation they would prefer to go to the charitys own website. She considers this to be an indication that relationships are built through social networking sites, but that people often trust making an actual donation on a more official website. This insight ties in with what our experts told us charities need to use social media to meet and engage possible supporters, get them motivated about a particular cause, and encourage them to help the organisation in some way. It will likely take quite a bit of engagement before a financial donation will be made. But its certainly important to highlight that building networks and relationships online takes time and energy. Steve Taylor explained that the League Against Cruel Sports was surprised just how much time managing their social media presence took: The level of workload has certainly surprised us. If you just want to use social media as a broadcasting tool then it probably doesnt take so much time, but to make the most of it is a full-time job for us. Of course, the amount you invest in social media does depend on the size of your organisation, and your aims for your online presence. For example, Julia Hancock at IPSEA explained that she doesnt get hung up on updating Twitter daily, but when we have something interesting to share then well use it but we dont worry too much about a tweet-less day. One thing is clear from our interviews: more effort than ever needs to be put into engaging people online. While its practically impossible to work out the return on investment for all those online conversations, tweets and Facebook likes, they are all part of building the vital relationships that foster support. As Jude Habib from Sounddelivery noted, now more than ever people need to be engaged before they will give.
A more level playing field?

We talked to organisations big, small and somewhere in between for this report. And its encouraging to see that some really innovative and interesting work thats happening online is being done by organisations of all sizes. Amy Sample Ward told us that when it comes to Facebook, the non-profits that have made the most money are not all big organisations indeed they are pretty evenly divided into the small, medium and large categories. Our experts told us how they and their organisations had been encouraged to enter listening, rather than broadcast mode. If your organisation is not providing people with the information, sense of community, or discussions that they are seeking, its very easy for them to find other organisations online, or even to go it alone and fundraise or share information independent of charities. Some of the most noteworthy stories fundraising stories of recent years have been about individuals raising money independently of organisations for an issue they care about. A recent example is Alices Bucket List3 a young English girl with terminal cancer who started blogging about all the things she would like to do before she dies. The link to her blog quickly
3 Find out more about Alice Pyne here: http://alicepyne.blogspot.com/
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spread through peoples social networks, and a wide range of people, including some celebrities, are helping her make the things on her list a reality. For example, she recently worked with the ceramics manufacturer Emma Bridgewater to design her own mug, which is now being sold to raise funds for the Torbay Holiday Helpers Network which supports families with terminally ill and recently bereaved children. Another example is the webpage set up to help Tottenham barber Aaron Biber repair the damage done to his barber shop following the London riots. The group of young interns who made this happen managed to raise 35,000 by setting up a page 4 using the popular Blogger platform, with a PayPal account to receive donations. While its perhaps going too far to say that there is a more level playing field for charities of all sizes online, the playing field has certainly changed its dimensions. No matter how experienced you and your organisation are and how much success you have had in the past, its important to stay tuned-in to your audiences in case theyre tempted by a conversation happening elsewhere.
Events fundraising beyond the finish line

Most of us would probably be willing to admit that we quite like to be in control. And, just as we highlighted three years ago, donors are staying faithful to this and taking fundraising into their own hands. Event fundraising is without doubt the big success story in online fundraising. But we asked ourselves as we embarked on this redraft: is events-fundraising it? Are there any other ways to successfully raise money online? What is clear is that events fundraising continues to be the success story, but perhaps the sector needs to worry less about whether other types of fundraising will emulate this success. Rob Dyson told us that people often approach Whizz-Kidz online purely because they have quite a few slots in the London Marathon, but the organisation works hard to ensure the relationship endures beyond the finish line. By connecting with marathon runners on Facebook (they have a dedicated Whizz-Kidz marathon page), and by sending messages of encouragement, congratulations and thanks, the organisation works hard to build a strong relationship that might last further into the future. Indeed, keeping people engaged with your organisation has never been easier, given the depth of relationship you can develop with tools such as Facebook. Our interviews suggest that events fundraising continues to be a great success online, and that connecting online with an event fundraiser can also be the start of a stronger relationship. Indeed, this is definitely an area where the words passion, persistence and partnership fit perfectly. Partnership for the event, persistence to get through the race or activity, and the passion that can develop throughout the process.
A sector more open to online wonders

Back in 2008, when the first edition of this report was published, we found that many charities (or should we say, senior management personnel) were resistant to making the most out of online potential, whether that was about website redesigns, social media, or geeking out on email stats. The picture is very different three years on. Indeed, some people we spoke to were wrapping up or beginning website redesigns, new blogging projects, and social media strategies. We asked a number of people whether they had faced any internal resistance, and most responded that there was now general acceptance that it was important for charities to invest in their online presence. Rob Dyson has a particular tip for anyone who needs to make a case for the importance of their work with social media: Rob curates a Library of Impact, where he keeps information and screenshots recording positive comments made about Whizz-Kidz which he can show to senior management and corporate partners.
You can read more about this heart-warming story here: http://keepaaroncutting.blogspot.com/
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Why loving social media begins at home

Everyone we spoke to was enthusiastic about how social media can do wonders for the relationship a charity has with its supporters. But many of our interviewees also described to us how social media has had a positive impact on internal communication, and strengthened peoples commitment to the cause. As Rob Dyson from Whizz-Kidz explained, the third sector is already quite a sharing sector, but social media tools strengthen this even further. For example, its a good idea for charities getting started with a new social media tool to start by simply observing what other organisations are doing. On Twitter particularly our interviewees recommend just following people you are interested in, representatives of charities that do similar work to you or who seem to be having good online conversations with supporters. That way you can pick up tips and ideas before you launch in yourself. You can also use social media to share ideas, find out about meetings, or even simply stay inspired by an idea by building a network with your sector colleagues. Rosi Jack also shared with us her enthusiasm for what blogging has brought to Emmaus UK. As discussed earlier, they currently have two blogs one authored by their Patron Terry Waite, and another blog where Companions in Emmaus communities (Companion is the name used within Emmaus UK for the people who live and work in their communities) describe their daily lives. The Community Life blog was actually started independently by Companions, but following some technical difficulties Emmaus offered to integrate the blog into their main website. There are now several more Companion bloggers, and a lively group of people who comment on posts. We do invest time in moderating comments, partly because its important for us to ensure we protect our more vulnerable Companions, but also because of the amount of spam that we get. Indeed, Rosi recommends other organisations take time to think about which social media tool helps you to best achieve your aims. Blogging for us is the right tool at the right time. The blog enables people to get real insights into homelessness, and the work we do here at Emmaus on a day-to-day basis. And very importantly for us, the blog empowers our Companions and this is vital for a grassroots organisation. Bertie Bosredon from Breast Cancer Care explained how his organisation has moved from monarchy to democracy when it comes to social media. We used to assume that we knew what our followers wanted online. However, we are now much more responsive to what people are saying in user groups and in the comments on social media. We also do user testing of our website and heed recommendations from users on how we can improve the layout and information. As we mention elsewhere in this chapter, online tools, and social media particularly, enable organisations to reach out to supporters, service users, and staff to find out what they want to find online, rather than making assumptions.
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Case Study: Using mass email and social media to have deeper and wider conversations
IPSEA Independent Parental Special Education Advice is a national charity providing free legally-based advice to families who have children with special educational needs. All their advice is given by trained volunteers. IPSEA only started using Facebook and Twitter in late January 2011, at the same time as signing up to the DotMailer mass email tool. The timing proved providential: in early March the Government published its Green Paper on Special Educational Needs, and using these three communication tools allowed them to access a much wider group of parents than for any previous consultation. Previously, we would have simply posted a press release on our website, but thanks to Twitter and Facebook we were able to connect with people before the paper was even published! We published our initial response on our website within hours and used Twitter and Facebook to direct people to it. Our chief executive was quoted in national press as a result. The Green Paper could lead to major changes in the provision for children with special educational needs and our new online tools allowed us to raise broad awareness about it. We doubled the number of visitors to our website and we calculated that we had between 5,000-6,000 unique contacts between IPSEA and members of the public just on the day the Paper was published. Using DotMailer, Julia created an online survey about the Green Paper and used email, Facebook and Twitter to publicise it. We had over 500 responses, a much larger response rate than to any previous research. This meant we could respond to the Governments consultation as a specialist charity with the weight of over 500 parents views behind us. The online survey, combined with an easy-to-use mass email tool, Facebook and Twitter, spread the net of respondents and made all this possible.
Website: Website redesign was IPSEAs first step in their online journey. When I joined as Development Manager my commercial background meant I looked at everything and asked: how can we keep doing what we do, but cheaper? We were offered a pro-bono redesign of our website and that led to a conversation about how we could embrace elearning. Now, many of the resources and pieces of information parents need can be found on our website, freeing up our volunteers to help with more complex questions and problems.
Julia highlights that it is important for organisations to get their websites up to scratch first, so that when they start to use mass email and social media there is a useful website to link to.
Facebook: A rather unexpected benefit of Facebook has been the ability to listen and learn, rather than simply spread the word about important issues. We had funding from the Esme Fairbairn Foundation to train school governors in special educational needs. I posted a link to the training on Facebook, not expecting much interest, but the opposite happened! Lots of people had opinions and information they wanted to share, and a school governor wrote a series of blogs about our training. It just would not have been possible before to find out what topics parents are interested in. The dialogue that Facebook brings is something that Julia enjoys, and has made her job much more interactive.
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Twitter: Getting started with Twitter was tougher than Facebook, but Julia has now identified some key benefits. It has been great for getting the word out about our survey on the Governments Green Paper. The instant and direct nature of Twitter means that we have been able to contact other, larger organisations who would have been very unlikely to respond to an email or a phone call from us. We actually tried to contact some of these in more traditional ways, and never heard back, but our Tweets were picked up by them and shared with thousands of their followers.
A few months on from establishing their social media presence there hasnt been a major upsurge in online donations, but the couple of fundraising messages Ive put on Facebook and Twitter have already raised more than the donate button on our website ever has. Importantly, IPSEA regularly gets offers of volunteer support through Facebook and Twitter. We have also signed up to Virgin Money Giving because someone ran the London Marathon for us and they had great success using it. It is really easy to use, we like that people can easily set up their own page and that the amount taken from each donation for administration is so low. Julia is still trying out different ways to ask for donations on social media and monitoring what works and what doesnt through the Virgin Money Giving site. All these developments, tools, and successes mean that this year, for the first time, online fundraising will be included in IPSEAs fundraising strategy. My advice for other small charities looking to start using social media and other online tools is not to be afraid while some of these tools seemed complicated and time-consuming at first Ive actually found them enjoyable to use and have loved interacting with people more. Julia also highlights that you shouldnt feel obliged to constantly update all your social media sites. Were not an organisation that has news to share all the time, so I dont worry about tweeting every day. I use Twitter and Facebook when I have something useful to share. Interview with Julia Hancock, Development Manager, IPSEA
Crossing the communications and fundraising frontier

Where does responsibility for digital sit in your organisation? Do you have more than one digital team? And what about social media is the responsibility shared by different members of your team or is there a guru responsible for everything in that domain? From the interviews we have conducted with various experts there doesnt seem to be a perfect answer for which department should manage your organisations online space. Nevertheless, its always useful to hear from others. At Emmaus we are currently working on a restructure which will bring the website under a cross-team group, rather than having it be the sole responsibility of the Communications Department. The aim is for us to work together to increase online engagement, and boost individual online donations. Nevertheless, the existence of a cross-team group will also enable us to ensure that we maintain the core aim of our website raising awareness of our organisation. (Rosi Jack, Emmaus UK) In 2009 we launched a project to boost our online individual giving, and as part of that we did a redevelopment of our website. One of the key things we did was ask, what is our website for? And we realised that for Merlin our online presence is focused at raising money. So we made the decision to move the website from the Communications to the Fundraising team. (Danielle Atkinson, Merlin)
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Steve Bridger believes that the online world means its important for everyone in a charity to consider themselves a fundraiser. When you are operating online the whole organisation needs to consider how best to make use of their opportunities and networks. New ideas can come from anywhere in your organisation, and its wrong to think that an online connection made about something unrelated to fundraising cannot lead to a donation.
Tips for website redesign

A number of people we spoke to had recently redesigned their websites, or been involved in site redesigns. We asked them for their tips on how to get the most out of your investment in a new website. Open source: Merlin recently redeveloped their website and Danielle Atkinson recommends that anyone looking to do the same ensures the developer creates it using an open source platform. This means that you wont be tied to one company for the life of the website. Keep some budget back: Jo Johnson from Jellymould Creative recommends that charities dont spend their entire new website budget on the redesign: Its important to budget and create a strategy for post-launch maintenance and any changes that need to be made. Be sure to test: Jo also worries that some charities do all their development in the dark, and go straight to launch without knowing how the site will be received. She recommends creating a beta version which runs simultaneously with the old site. This enables you to gather feedback from users, and make changes during the website creation phase, rather than finding you need to make a big batch of changes once the website has been launched and the budget spent. Think carefully about what you need to test: think about creating personas of your typical website user. What will they need to find? How might they navigate the website? For example, if you are a charity supporting people with dyslexia, have you checked to see if the colours on the website work for them? Content strategy: dont just plan for how the new website will look: work out a content strategy so that the website is regularly updated with interesting content, and doesnt turn into a graveyard site. Databases: Raj Dasani explained that as part of improvements to their website, Crisis have connected online donations to their main website, so all the relevant details and permissions about future contact are automatically updated, eliminating lots of administration.
The mobile web

Mobile communications just like the internet is a topic that gets people speaking in superlatives. Mobile phones revolutionise payments! Smartphone apps the next big thing for charities? While such statements are not always that helpful for people at the coalface of fundraising and communications, there are clear signs that mobile internet is an area in need of attention. A growing proportion of online donations for major fundraising events are coming through mobile internet: 36% of donations processed by PayPal for Red Nose Day went through a mobile checkout. Howard Lake from Fundraising UKs view is that by 2013 people are going to be accessing the internet more through their phones than their computers, and so charities need to ensure that their websites can be accessed via mobile devices.
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If your organisation is reviewing your website, its important to consider whether you need to create a mobile website too. The London Symphony Orchestra did its research, and noted that people were accessing their website on the go in order to get information about tickets and directions to concert venues. While Jo Johnson, their Digital Marketing Manager, had investigated whether an app might be right for the organisation, they also noticed from their data that it wasnt just smartphone users who were visiting the LSO online. We decided that creating a mobile website was much more appropriate for us than heading down the apps route. People with basic phones or top of the range iPhones can now get the information easily from our website. Amy Sample Ward recommends that charities do their research into what information their mobile website needs to contain. Your mobile website wont just be a reorganised version of the same content. Youll need to prioritise the information that people will want to access on the go. Amy also states how important it is to map out the entire journey of someone visiting your site what you dont want is someone visiting your clear and well-designed mobile site, clicking on a donation button and then being taken through to a complicated donation page with tiny text.
Join up the dots

Indeed, ensuring you join up the dots is key not just when it comes to your mobile website. Third sector IT specialist Sue Fidler recommends that charities ensure they get the basics right when sending out mass emails if you include a link to your website, then ensure people are connected through to the right section. Dont just take people through to your webpage. If they have been asked to donate, ensure theyre taken to the donation section, but if theyve just been encouraged to find out more, they need to get through to some relevant information.
Some general tips

Ben Matthews from Brightone recommends that charities stick to the 80/20 rule to improve their online engagement. This means that only about 20% of what you post on social media sites should be directly promoting your charity. The other 80% should be interesting news from your sector, ideas from other organisations, or responses to what your online community are discussing. Get familiar with the tone and varied uses of different social media. Experts mentioned to us that Facebook can be great for light-hearted discussions, Twitter works best for news and links to content and resources, and blogs are the perfect forum for giving voice to your service users or community members. This wont be true for everybody but its worth taking some time to listen (yes, more listening!) and ensure you are getting your tone right. For example, Sarah Dyer explained that Beatbullying uses its own social networking platform which enables children and young people to talk to each other; Facebook is mainly aimed at increasing adult engagement, and Twitter is mostly a zone for other key stakeholders and political lobbying. If a conflict does emerge online, and responding via online discussion isnt working, consider taking the discussion offline or start a direct email discussion with specific people. This can prevent an online dispute being seen by everyone.
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And finally your online presence is raising more than you think
While many of the people we spoke to conceded that they had still not succeeded in raising large amounts online, Steve Bridger highlights that online giving is growing far faster than offline giving, which remains relatively flat. Furthermore, its difficult to measure the various factors that have influenced people to give in more traditional ways, so there is likely to be an underestimation of the success of digital engagement.
Case Study: eBay for Charity & MissionFish

MissionFish aims to help charities get the most out of online commerce. They want to make it possible for any charity to benefit from any gift from any donor. Their major initiative is eBay for Charity, a unique programme that helps charities raise money on eBay. eBay for Charity helps charities of all sizes to raise funds by trading on the eBay marketplace. It also gives over 17 million unique monthly visitors to eBay.co.uk a secure and efficient way of donating a percentage of their sales to a charity of their choice. As eBays partner for the eBay for Charity programme, MissionFish vets charities, processes donations, collects Gift Aid and advises charities on how to make the most of the eBay marketplace. The past few years have been vibrant ones for MissionFish, the charity which helps charities to raise money on eBay. While around 100,000 items were listed to specifically benefit charities on ebay.co.uk in 2007, that number reached an impressive 1.5 million in 2010. The result is that eBay for Charity has almost quadrupled the amount it has raised for charitable causes in the last 3 years, from around 2 million in 2007 to 7.5 million in 2010. Money can be generated in several ways. For example, individuals and companies can sell goods on ebay.co.uk, with a proportion of the sale price going to their nominated charity via MissionFish. In such cases the items are identified with a small ribbon, increasing trust in the seller, and interest in the item. A recent study by Columbia Business School involved a price comparison of items sold on eBay: comparing goods with no ribbon/charitable donation and those with a ribbon (those including a donation). Those with a donation achieved on average 8% higher prices at auctions, and 34% higher sell-through rates. Nick highlighted the particular success of marketing promotions they can make a really big impact: for instance the Children in Need appeal resulted in an additional 250,000 listings for charity. Meanwhile, charities are becoming more entrepreneurial: setting up eBay shops themselves and turning over more than 100,000 each year from innovative sales strategies. In March 2011, for example, the top fundraisers on eBay included the Wild Trout Trust (raising nearly 50,000 by auctioning fishing experiences), MillRace IT (raising 35,000 from refurbished computer equipment), and Clic Sargent (raising 15,000 by selling stock donated by HMV). In the same month, Comic Relief ran an innovative campaign combining Twitter and eBay, auctioning unique celebrity experiences with a Twitter element, and raising 280,000. In 2008, MissionFish launched eBay Give at Checkout, enabling buyers to add a small donation when they shop on eBay. The feature has now raised over 4.6m for 2,300 UK charities. The ease of donating in this way makes it a big pull for those who only want to make a small commitment, and Nick draws an analogy with the way people give to a
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person rattling a tin at the supermarket: put a coin in the digital collection box and move on. Now eBay users can even choose a favourite charity (or charities) to support at the checkout, and over 40,000 have done so already. Users are about 17 times more likely to donate if a charity theyve previously nominated is shown. MissionFish is now working with PayPal to make it possible for donations to be made to a nominated charity whenever a PayPal account is used. This will offer PayPal users both individuals and merchants new opportunities to support charities as part of their everyday online activities. Interview with Nick Aldridge, CEO, MissionFish UK
Case Study: Emmaus UK uses blogs to engage their community and raise awareness
Emmaus Communities enable people to move on from homelessness, providing work and a home in a supportive, family environment. Companions, as residents are known, work full time collecting, renovating and reselling donated furniture. This work supports the Community financially and enables residents to develop skills and rebuild their self-respect. Emmaus is an international movement, with 20 Communities in the UK. Much of Emmaus funding comes from selling donated goods, especially furniture, in Emmaus shops. This side of the charitys work is also the primary factor that attracts visitors to the Emmaus UK website. Rosi Jack, Communications & Enterprise Support Manager, explains that they seek to engage these visitors so that a visit to find out about donating a second-hand sofa becomes a longer tour of the website, with visitors leaving more aware and engaged in the work of Emmaus and the subject of homelessness. Key to engaging people with homelessness and Emmaus work has been the use of blogs on the website. Emmaus UK launched two blogs in January of this year. The first is authored by their celebrity supporter and Patron, Terry Waite. Their other (more regularly updated) one is the Community Life blog. The Community Life blog was actually initiated by a Companion in one of the Communities, but now sits on the main Emmaus UK website. Various Companions now contribute to the blog, and the choice of the WordPress platform makes it easy for anyone to update. Emmaus does allow people to comment on posts, but they also invest time moderating these comments to ensure that they are protecting the more vulnerable bloggers, as well as to dealing with high levels of spam. Not only does the blog enhance peoples pathway towards better understanding homelessness and Emmaus, it offers an important opportunity to empower Companions to express their opinions and connect with other Emmaus Communities, as well as supporters. While Facebook and Twitter are certainly valuable tools, we have found that blogs are the right tool for us. Blogging fits with what we are trying to do as an organisation. Its important for organisations to pick the platform and technology that works for them, explains Rosi. As for the future, Emmaus is currently restructuring, which will mean that the website becomes the responsibility of a cross-team group. The aim is to drive online engagement,
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and individual giving, while still retaining the core focus of the website raising awareness about homelessness, and Emmaus Communities. While online donations only made up 2% of our individual donations last year, this happened with little effort from our end. This has led to recognition that there is a lot of potential for raising more online. Interview with Rosi Jack, Communications & Enterprise Support Manager, Emmaus UK
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Section 5: Conclusion are we looking at new media in the wrong way?

There is much to be excited about in the ways that charities are generating income in the digital world. Since our first edition we have seen the growth of many of the mechanisms through which charities are earning online. We have seen the portion of income earned online nearly double. The growth of the smartphone and the liberalisation of text donations both herald a new wave of earned and fundraised income. But fundraisers love a silver bullet. They search endlessly like the crusaders of old for their holy grail: the next big fundraising thing. And it is now clear that earning income online is not that next big thing. We now think that seeing the digital world as the next big thing in terms of income is to miss its true potential. It is the next big thing (indeed the current big thing) in terms of engagement. The real job of the digital world is to introduce people, particularly young people, to the world of charities and giving. It is now the first place that many young people will develop their own relationship with a charity. And the beauty of these online relationships is that the first step can be so small, so low-key and so inconspicuous. This means young people can develop these relationships at their own speed, in their own style. Not the mini-me relationships of schools or parents, but their own relationships. Why is this so important? Because, traditionally, most people dont develop deep relationships with charities until well into their thirties. So if the online world can help bring forward the point when more committed relationships with charities are formed for a generation of people in their tweens or twenties then this could produce a step-change in attitudes as people grow up. Furthermore, this wont be just about giving, but also about campaigning and volunteering. So our excitement about the online world is not just about the money, its about the relationships. Its about those people, those young people, who the online world is introducing to the world of charities, at a younger age, and with greater potential for them to choose their own causes and their own ways of giving, than ever before.
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Case Study: Increasing online fundraising through expanded email lists

Merlin is the UKs leading charity specialising in international health and it sends medical experts to the front lines of global emergencies. Presently, Merlin receives over 90% of its funds from institutional grants. As a result the money is often restricted, hampering Merlins ability to work in certain countries or regions. In 2009, Merlin recognised the need to grow its unrestricted funding by increasing the amount it raises through individual giving. Thus began a project to boost online individual giving. Head of Digital and Individual Giving Danielle Atkinson explains: it was key that we prioritise the objectives of our online presence. For us, it was about raising money. This meant that the website moved from being the responsibility of the Communications team over to Fundraising. The project brought about quite a change at Merlin, with away-days organised to ensure that the entire team was engaging with the online content, and that the tone of emails, newsletters, website, and social media moved to a more user-focused model less us and more them. Merlin also invested in research into their online audience. Danielles team looked at growing their email list whilst improving their newsletters, drawing people to their website with the objective of getting them to donate and using social media to engage with supporters and followers who in the long run may become donors. Email is Merlins principal fundraising tool and has benefitted greatly from the online individual giving project. The organisation grew their email list from 3,000 in 2009 to 11,000 in April 2011 and with the aim of passing 16,000 by early 2012. Most of these email addresses come through donor acquisition, but Merlin always ask for email addresses in any contact with supporters or potential supporters. When asked what she thinks is the next big thing in online fundraising, Danielle says for her the focus is not on the next thing but doing things that work better. For Merlin this means growing the email list and improving communications even more. Indeed, her biggest irritations are bad emails, where they are not personalised or where they ask the supporter to do too many, often unrelated, things. Merlin conducted research into their online community to improve their email subject lines, send times and tone and in doing so have improved their open, click-through and donation rates. Complementing the email-based fundraising push is the new Merlin website, remodelled to focus on fundraising. When asked to share any technical expertise tips, Danielle says the best part of Merlins new website is that it was developed using open-source software, which gives flexibility in the future for choosing agencies to maintain the site. And its much more affordable too. Merlin also trained the whole Fundraising team to use the website, so they are not overly reliant on one person. Pushing online donations is especially important to Merlin just as Danielle has noted in other charities, average online donation figures appear to be between 30-40 more than donations made offline. Finally, Merlin has also embraced social media, in particular Facebook and Twitter. The focus is currently on engaging with a new audience, in particular younger people. Hugh Bonneville is a celebrity supporter who has done some prolific tweeting on Merlins behalf. While Danielle has not noticed a big impact on donations, she sees it as important to try out these tools, rather than play catch-up in a couple of years. While its still early to be assessing the success of Merlins online individual giving strategy, with online donations last year three times the total of the previous three years combined Merlin looks to have made a strong start. Interview with Danielle Atkinson, Head of Digital and Individual Giving at Merlin
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Key partners to help you raise more money online

Sign up with any or all of these partners to create an immediate boost to your online income. Dont forget to promote them to your supporters as a way of helping, too. 1. CAF Online Giving Donors can find and support any UK charity on CAFs website with a one-off donation or using a CAF Account. Online donations processed by CAF grew from 3.6 million to 6.8 million between 2003 and 2004. Charities can also use CAF to process donations on their behalf from their own websites. 2. Easyfundraising this free service for charities and shoppers has processed 350,000 in donations for good causes since the company's launch in October 2006. Shoppers who click through to buy from over 500 retailers partnered with the site generate free donations to the good cause of their choice. 80,000 has been raised since January 2008. 3. eBay for Charity is the largest e-commerce site in the UK with over 17 million monthly visitors. Charities have sold merchandise on it for years but the launch of eBay for Charity in 2006 brought their activities into focus, helping them to set up their own stores and to receive donations from eBay users. To date, UK charities have raised over 28m through the platform. 4. Everyclick.com One of the UKs top 10 search engines, Everyclick donates 50% of its monthly revenue to charities selected by its users. 114,939 people have already helped raise over 432,829 for charity as they search the web. 5. The Big Give a free-to-use website that helps major donors find charity projects in their field of interest. Sharing your success stories and big projects with The Big Give may just help you find the major donor youve dreamt of. Since launching in December 2007 they have matched major donors to numerous projects with a total value of over 6 million. 6. Google Adsense/ Google Adwords Grants Google is the worlds number 1 search engine. It controls the vast majority of UK searches and the majority of the online advertising market. Adsense allows you to display contextual adverts on your site and collect commission each time they are clicked on. The Google Grants UK programme awards free advertising to successful charities to enable them to target audiences who search on Google to click through to their site. 7. Just Giving/Virgin Money Giving/BT donate dont miss out on the growing popularity of online event sponsorship fundraising. Just Giving and Virgin Money Giving are both popular with charities and supporters, and both report high levels of annual growth, while BT donate is growing fast. These sites are increasing their own outreach to communities too. 8. Amazon Associates Amazon controls around 12% of the online book sales market. It first established its successful affiliate marketing programme in 1996. By linking to Amazon products and services you can add interesting and relevant content to your site and receive up to 10% in referral fees. 9. Text donations donating by and through mobile phones is only going to grow in importance. There are already a number of suppliers who are key partners in mobilebased fundraising and these include Justtextgiving, Vir2 and CAF, who have their own text service.
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Want to find out more?

While we hope youve found this report useful, here are some pointers for places to go for more information, inspiration and ideas. Would you like to explore the use of social media for your organisation? Are you keen to read some more case studies showing how other organisations have made use of social media, email or the mobile web in their work? Hopefully these following links will help.
Organisation/ Person/ Resource CharityComms
Website
What can I find there?
http://www.charitycomms.org.uk/
CharityComms the Institute of Charity Communications has lots of interesting posts on a range of topics and tips from sector specialists on how to make the most of digital. Check out their events too. A great way to stay tuned into developments in the tech field. Not too techy! A free download giving you lots of inspiration for engaging people online. Amys enthusiasm for what technology can do for not-for-profits is infectious! Check out her blog for pointers and advice. Beths blog is one of the most influential when it comes to charities and social media. A book which discusses how charities can thrive in our new networked society, written by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine
Guardian Tech Weekly podcast Social by Social
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/ series/techweekly
http://www.socialbysocial.com/
Amy Sample Ward
http://amysampleward.org/
Beth Kanter
http://www.bethkanter.org/
The Networked Non-Profit
AIME Charity Forum
http://www.aimelink.org/initiatives/Cha rity.aspx
The Association for Interactive Media & Entertainment has set up a forum for charities to help them maximise the amount they raise from interactive technologies, including mobiles. Bamboozled by all those social media terms? Here are lots of clear definitions.
Socialbrite glossary
http://www.socialbrite.org/sharingcenter/glossary/
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The authors
Gemma Tracey Gemma is a Senior Researcher at nfpSynergy. She is part of the team that manages nfpSynergys Parliamentary research, and also works on bespoke research projects with a range of clients from Macmillan Cancer Support to the Scout Association. Gemma recently co-authored one of nfpSynergys social investment reports a guide to how charities can use mobile phones in their communication and fundraising work. Outside work Gemma is a trustee of the environmental charity Look East Wild Earth, and recently volunteered as a trainer for an EU-funded project on leadership and facilitation skills run by Youth and Environment Europe. She is just about to complete a masters degree in Russian Studies at UCL. You can contact Gemma on gemma.tracey@nfpsynergy.net. Jon Matthews Jon is a freelance fundraiser and researcher. He also works part-time as the Funding Strategy Officer for the Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations. He specialises in rural regeneration and social economic research; past studies have included the social and economic value of walking in England for the Ramblers Association, the Welsh Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare with Cardiff University and funding challenges facing third sector organisations in Wales for the Assembly Government. Jon provides a range of practical funding support to community and voluntary organisations from business planning to funding applications and project evaluations. Outside work Jon is a trustee of Radnorshire Wildlife Trust and Rhayader and District Community Support providing community transport and a volunteer bureau service. You can contact Jon on info@jonmatthews.co.uk. Joe Saxton Joe Saxton is founder and driver of ideas at nfpSynergy He is also chair of the CharityComms the professional body for not-for-profit communicators and chair of the student campaign group People & Planet. He was chair of the Institute of Fundraising for three years till July 2008. He has been in the top ten of the most influential people in UK fundraising every year since it started in 2002 including top on four occasions. In 2009, 2010 and 2011 he was named as one of the most influential people in voluntary sector PR by PR Week. He has written and researched on legacies, fundraising from financial services, volunteering, using mobile phones for fundraising, generating income online, branding and competition in charities. You can contact Joe on joe.saxton@nfpsynergy.net
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The partners behind this report nfpSynergy

nfpSynergy is a research consultancy for the not-for-profit sector. Our goal is to provide research information and knowledge to help non-profits thrive. We do tracking research, focus groups and individual projects. We measure anything from effectiveness to advertising. We run both syndicated monitors and individual projects for dozens of different charities, using a wide variety of research techniques. We have also published a range of reports covering a variety of issues, which you can download from our website for free. Our free reports include Virtual Promise, a survey that has been conducted every three years since 2000 that tracks charities' use of, and attitudes to, the internet. The report incorporates data on specific information regarding their internet presence and resources, including budgets, staff allocation, hardware/software, marketing, agreement with statements and much more. For more information go to: www.nfpsynergy.net
MissionFish and ebay for Charity

We aim to help charities get the most out of online commerce. We want to make it possible for any charity to benefit from any gift from any donor. To achieve that vision we're trying to make it easier to give as a part of daily life online, and were working to change the way people think about philanthropy. We are a registered charity (No 1110538). Visit www.missionfish.org.uk Our major initiative is eBay for Charity, a unique programme that helps charities raise money on eBay through donations, sales and special auctions. To date, UK charities have raised over 28m through eBay for Charity.
Institute of Fundraising
The Institute of Fundraising is the professional membership body for UK fundraising. The Institutes mission is to support fundraisers, through leadership, representation, standards setting and education, to deliver excellent fundraising. The Institute represents over 4,500 fundraisers and 250 fundraising organisations, providing dedicated information and support services. The Institute is a charity registered in England and Wales (No 1079573) and Scotland (No SC038971). For more information visit www.institute-of-fundraising.org.uk
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MissionFish Hotham House, 1 Heron Square Richmond TW9 1EJ Email: ukcampaigns@missionfish.org Website: www.missionfish.org.uk

Sept 2011. Passion, Persistence &amp; Partnership 2nd Edition. Presented by The Institute of Fundraising and NfpSynergy

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Passion, persistence, and partnership:

the secrets of earning more online 2nd Edition

The next generation of givers

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Six secrets to earning money online

Secret 2: Help charity advocates do the asking for you

Secret 3: Destroy the silos, and respond rapidly and coherently

Secret 4: Every little helps in raising more online

Secret 5: The smartphone is a supertanker

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Section 1: What is this report all about?

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Section 2: The internet, interactivity and the public

Chart 1 Percentage of households that have broadband

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Chart 2 Childrens access to the internet by age

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Chart 5 People participating in social networking websites as % of population

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Hannah Christie, Volunteer & Recruitment Manager, ReachOut!

The most visited charity websites

The next decade of web use

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Case Study: Listening is key to building relationships online

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Jack Cumming, e-Commerce Manager, AICR

Section 3: Charities use of the internet and social media

Partnerships with external suppliers and services

Chart 6 Popularity of online tools for charities

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

How is social media being used by charities?

Chart 7 Ways in which organisations use Facebook, YouTube and Twitter

Staffing levels for websites, social media and mobile work

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Chart 9 Usefulness of web presence for areas of work

Chart 10 Strategic importance of the internet to organisations

Promoting and measuring web usage

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Chart 11 How organisations market their websites online

Chart 12 Measuring website useage

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Chart 13 Barriers to web usage

Online income generation

Chart 14 Income/spending ratios

Chart 15 Amount raised per staff member fundraising on the internet/online

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Chart 16 Amount raised per staff member

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Interview with Kirsty Stephenson, Digital Planner, Childs i Foundation

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Advocates finding and nurturing them

Attention to detail matters more than you might think

A golden era for feedback

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

A more level playing field?

Events fundraising beyond the finish line

A sector more open to online wonders

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Why loving social media begins at home

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Crossing the communications and fundraising frontier

Tips for website redesign

The mobile web

Passion, persistence, and partnership: the secrets of earning more online

Sept 2011. Passion, Persistence & Partnership 2nd Edition. Presented by The Institute of Fundraising and NfpSynergy

Sept 2011. Passion, Persistence & Partnership 2nd Edition. Presented by The Institute of Fundraising and NfpSynergy