NET GAIN Make Donors Feel at Home on Your Homepage
By HARRY GRUBER
The philanthropic playing field has become increasingly competitive, and many nonprofits struggle to earn their fair share of charitable giving. Instead of just soliciting donors, today's savvy organizations partner with them to generate gifts and, ideally, lifelong giving.
Smoothing the playing field requires an ongoing affinity between the donor and the cause. This type
of experience escalates an individual from basic involvement to having a strong emotional connection that results in taking action to provide financial or volunteer support. The Internet increasingly has become a powerful tool to harness that connection and empower your organization, allowing it to provide instant feedback, communicate frequently and make its communications targeted and personal — three elements essential to create a positive donor/organization relationship.
One of the main reasons donors fail to move from casual involvement with an organization to a more involved relationship is that bad interactions with the organization keep them from experiencing the emotional fulfillment of giving.
Maybe their past donations weren't appropriately acknowledged, for example. It's imperative that donors know quickly and with certainty that their gift was received — and are continuously reminded of its impact. This is one area where the Internet can help enhance your relationship with donors.
Let's say a donor has been mailing a donation of $25 each year for several years, and then one day makes a $100 donation online. If he continues to receive a mailed request for his annual $25 donation — with no acknowledgement of his online contribution — he might fail to feel connected to the organization because it seems like it's not connected to him.
A better scenario would be that an online donation instantly is followed by a thank-you e-mail, informing the donor how the gift will be used and its social impact.
But it can't stop there: The key to successful fundraising is to keep donors informed on an ongoing basis of their gifts' impact via a variety of communication vehicles. For example, enabling donors to log on to your Web site at their convenience and view their personal giving records — as well as the impact of those gifts — provides real-time acknowledgement of donation history and feedback on how those gifts are helping to further your cause. The result is donors become more engaged in your organization's cause. As they come to trust that their gifts are being put to good use, they're more likely to become repeat donors.
Keep it personal
Another key to furthering the donor experience is to engage donors and prospects on a personal level. Imagine, for example, that instead of contacting your prospect database via a traditional, direct-mail campaign, you use knowledge of their Web site activity and giving history to send targeted e-mail or direct-mail pieces based on donor interests and preferences.
For example, if a donor immediately clicks through to view a specific cause on your Web site, such as saving the rainforests, and then makes an online donation to benefit that specific cause, you've obtained a valuable piece of information. By sending targeted communication about rainforest-specific campaigns, your organization is acknowledging that you understand his interests, and you're much more likely to receive additional donations and increase donor affinity.
Knowledge of prior interactions also can be used to improve the giving experience for donors visiting your Web site. Use segmentation tools to target Web content for donors based on their interests and preferences to help create a more personalized and targeted experience. This can improve an opportunity to raise additional funds online and increase donor affinity. For example, when the donor interested in saving rainforests visits your Web site and is greeted by content specific to that cause, you'll capture his interest more quickly because you're immediately providing information he wants.
Additionally, you can invite the prospects in your database to participate in a membership
community or to develop their own personal fundraising community on your organization's Web site. Providing supporters with tools to easily build personalized Web pages allows them to invite family and friends to donate or become involved in fundraising teams for your cause. Encouraging all participants to register on your Web site enables them to receive additional information and become further connected, building fundraising momentum and increasing dollars raised.
As your donor community grows, your organization must be ready to further engage supporters in your cause. Use the tools that exist to your advantage. You have a database of donors who've agreed to a digital relationship with your organization and are connected to your online community. Use external overlay data to further target your communications and fundraising efforts based on giving capacity and propensity. In fact, a major-gift donation could be just one phone call away if you use your datato determine donor interests, preferences and giving capacity.
Harry E. Gruber, M.D., is the co-founder, president and chief executive of San Diego-based software and service provider Kintera. He's a member of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School Medical Alumni Leadership Council and the advisory board of KPBS, a public broadcast service of San Diego State University that offers commercial-free TV, radio and Internet programming.
