The Agitator

Yesterday I wrote a post, Too Important for Techies, saying that online fundraising was in the wrong hands … techies.

It stirred up quite a commotion, as you can see by reading the comments following the post.

Including my DonorTrends colleague, Ryann Miller, who offers these thoughts. Sort of a plea for us to respect the individuality of the new "child." I think she makes some excellent points …

"I’d like to break this down a bit, because there are a few arguments put forth that warrant some exploration and cross-examination.

Online cultivation sucks in no small part because there is too little budget. Don’t try to tell me this ain’t so.. Furthermore, in my experience, online (and here I mean mostly email, but not exclusively) was used as a multi-purpose channel with far, far less money than mail/phone/TV. Online is a workhorse compared to some one-trick channel ponies. Online campaigns were supposed to test multiple elements, deploy differing campaigns to different segments, ask for money, ask for advocacy-based support, ask donors for potential changes of addresses, if they want to get the newsletter, if they want to volunteer. And that’s in one email sent our every few weeks or months (or so).

I’m not saying asking for more than one thing doesn’t exist in other channels. I am saying that it happens all the time with online appeals, and online tends to get the budgetary shaft, therefore online appeals tend to be, as Dave puts it ‘poor/inconsistent/infrequent online cultivation’. They lack cohesion and regularity, which are the foundation to conduct more and better testing. Without more testing, it’s harder to find success, and then harder to lobby for realistic budgets.

All the while, however, the standards for online campaigns are high. We can easily see other great (usually commercial) campaigns online. And we’re inevitably comparing online results to offline results, even though, as I suggest below, they are apples and oranges. Plus you have to know about hard and soft bounces, unique landing page URLs and coding HTML so that the email will look normal in Hotmail, Yahoo and Outlook. That is some insight into the reality of online campaigns

What does this mean? Staffers (whoever they are – fundraisers, consultants, communications people, and likely some techies) are juggling too many things and quality suffers.

So, Dave, yes, offline cultivation is stronger, more experienced, and works better. I’m sure there are some donors who get this and move to DM.

But I don’t think that explains the majority of them. Who reading this thinks that most donors understand – nay, have thought about – the pros and cons of different fundraising/communications channels?  Unless you’re in marketing, I doubt most donors have.

I disagree with Dave’s reason why donors gravitate to offline channels: it’s not because they’re more consistent and better, it’s because DM is a deeper, richer channel for communication. Online is a shallow medium, and mail is deeper in the sense that it’s a physical, tactile experience. With direct mail, if you open the letter, you’re going to hold it, read it, go get your checkbook etc. You’re doing one thing at a time. There’s a process that takes time, and this assumes, and underscores, a relationship between the organization and the donor.

Donors – humans – like the ease of online, at first. It caters to their desire to stay removed, to analyze rationally, to skim and scan, not read, to not invest (either money or emotion). Online donating is more transactional than relational. So if a person donates online and then moves to/agrees to receive mailings, they’re saying they’re ready for a deeper relationship with your organization. We all have examples of this from the courtship metaphor.

Therefore, it’s a very good indicator when online donors move to other channels (whether unassisted or assisted), because it means that they want a deeper, more connected experience with the organization. It’s less about the ask and the regularity and more about the different channel offering a different, more meaningful, experience.

I’m with Dave 100% that donors who start online are moving offline. And I’m with Tom that online is still too much controlled by techies who don’t know the First Rule of Fundraising (it’s about human relationships). I don’t agree with Dave’s theory as to why donors are finding DM, and I put forth my own theory that it’s related to human relationships and the donor’s desire to deepen their relationship.

Furthermore, I hope I provide some much-needed background information to flesh out why online as a channel is still struggling to find its place in the donor universe. It reminds me of a (bad) parent saying to a younger child ‘why can’t you be more like your older brother/sister?’. That’s no way for the younger child to carve out a niche for themselves, and no way to treat online giving as one channel in the fundraising family."

Ryann Miller