Yesterday we reported our Agitator survey results on current nonprofit fundraising priorities. The survey was triggered by our desire to get a sense of how fundraisers planned to fit social media (Facebook etc) into their marketing mix over the next twelve months.
We weren’t surprised by the results — major gift fundraising and and direct mail will be the workhorses, with "conventional" (if I dare use that term already) online fundraising — email appeals, donate pages, etc — following closely behind. Clearly, social media fundraising is still deemed as experimental (the verbatim responses emphasize that point), although a surprisingly high percentage to me (54%), see this channel yielding significant revenue within five years.
So I asked myself … if I ran a nonprofit and my fundraising team came in tomorrow proposing to invest a chunk of our fundraising capital in a social media effort (or any other new fundraising approach), how would I respond?
As I thought about it, I came up with these questions:
1. What is the scale of the proposed effort relative to our overall fundraising program? Size matters! The team’s first responsibility is to produce the revenue they said they would to pay for our organization’s programmatic efforts. In that context, what is the relative level of investment involved, and what impact might the proposed diversion of investment in this new direction have on meeting our committed goals?
2. Is our fundraising audience — the folks giving our organization money today — ready for this new approach? Are they users of the technology or tools involved? Based on what evidence? Are we aware of any results from like organizations trying similar approaches? If my team makes a case that the new approach stands a good chance of working with current donors, I’m all ears. If they pitch me that "we’re building for the future or to reach a new constituency," I’m going to be more cautious and probably more stingy. Which isn’t to say I won’t invest or take a risk … as those who have worked with me know!
3. What do we actually know about the new channel or technology? Who on our team will be in charge? Do we have pertinent skills? Do we need outside expertise? There’s informed experimentation; and then there’s flying blind or following the herd. I’m not interested in either, or in "cool."
4. Are there any opportunity costs? Even if the answer to my first question indicates the scale of the proposal is OK, there are still issues of mind share, work loads, timing, integration with other fundraising efforts, donor reactions (including not responding). Have these operational issues and contingencies been thought through?
5. What value will we get from this, and how will we measure success? By definition, what’s proposed is an experiment. So I wouldn’t expect the exercise to make us rich and famous. But some ROI analysis should be presented … we are fundraisers, after all. That said, I would be amenable to other learnings and — to some degree — ancillary benefits from the project. The team just needs to convince me that they have some valuable fundraising hypotheses to be tested, and they have a plan for measuring results.
Answer those questions persuasively and I’ll dip into the fundraising account.
Sound too stringent or conservative?
I submit that my fundraising team’s job is to protect and nurture our existing donor base; to raise the funds projected for this year; to make prudent investments to grow that base using proven methods and current response data; and to scan the horizon for new opportunities and ways to grow. In that order!
In the case of social media, if you think the real value — today — is in terms of communications or advocacy, then sell it to me on those terms. And show me metrics related to those objectives. Don’t ask me to invest my fundraising dollars.
I’m happy to hear other views.
Tom the Scrooge
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As a consultant focused on direct response for nonprofits, I’ve encountered the same situation with many of my clients. Yes, there is value to social media, but can you afford to sacrifice staff time in income-generating programs to dive into the time-consuming world of social media maintenance? I’ve argued this point in a recent white paper: http://www.schultzwilliams.com/staff_pub/sp_02.html
Glad I’m not the only one!
Sam the Scrooge
Tom (aka Scrooge) – this is perhaps the best write up on social marketing investment/attention I’ve seen from The Agitator (or anywhere for that matter).
As I’ve said before, I think that social nets (like mobile – which I’ve not seen you talk about – perhaps I missed it) will do SOMETHING for us – but it isn’t going to replace mail, email or major donor work anytime soon. And, it is questionable what effect it will even have on growing our file sizes or supporting other marketing efforts.
The questions you challenge us with today are right on.
I guess many fundraising managers will sympathise with Tom’s comments. What a shame. Let me bounce a bit of commercial reality off you, by commenting on Tom’s points one at a time:
1) The real question for fundraisers is, ‘How certain are you that your current supporters will deliver the planned budget?’. Most would be less then convinced it’s in the bag. In commerce it is generally accepted that if you are not growing new ‘customers’ you are going backwards. Charity supporters, bless them, eventually die. They are often ‘seduced’ by other causes, however much you look after them. And many simply will not afford to give as much as they did in the past. So if a charity is not growing its supporter base, I contend it will inevitably be in decline.
One of the main attractions of social nets is that they offer an exceptionally cost-effective way of communicating with a wider audience. Major investments are not normally needed to start a viral project.
2) Social nets are about communicating with the wider world, much more than with existing supporters. If everyone waits for someone else to provide ‘evidence’, little progress is made in any endeavour. Open your mind. In the UK, 24 million people have social net pages – 300 million in the big wide world. How else could you possibly talk to these people as directly and personally? If you pitch your charity’s case effectively, raising funds should naturally follow to experienced fundraisers.
3)How much more do you need to know to get under way? There’s plenty of free advice available. And why on earth are you not interested in ‘cool’? If ‘cool’ could generate funds for your charity, either you need to get ‘cool’ or be in another job.
4)In reality much social net activity is low cost (in time and money) and could often be done by keen staff members or volunteers. But this is naturally a point to consider.
5) I wonder how good you are at measuring success of email or direct mail, for example? Both are strongly disliked by the public, both on privacy and environmental grounds in the case of DM. It is very expensive and sure to decline.
Quite a lot of social net activity costs nothing but some staff time. You can not get a better ROI. The world of communications is changing fast. Yes, nobody can yet be sure of exactly when most audiences will communicate more through social nets than by email, but most pundits believe that is the way things are moving.
I submit that the fundraisers’ job is to grow the supporter base at the same time as raising the target income. This strategy reduces dependency on high-donation supporters and provides a more secure future income stream for the charity. Social nets, while not being a fundraising panacea, must play a key role in any membership organisation’s future communications and fundraising strategy.
If you’ve been in doubt, I urge you to take a fresh look at the value of social nets! You have little to lose and a huge amount to gain.