Online Fundraising Lessons Learned from Australia

By Philip King

I just returned from a trip to Australia, and it’s interesting to me how different countries bring their own unique cultural context to online fundraising. There are also some important lessons to learn that we can import back into our North American fundraising mix.

Overall, Australians are quite similar to North Americans in their use of the Internet, though they face more connectivity challenges than we’re accustomed to. Finding good high-speed at Wi-Fi cafes is more limited, but most workplaces are sufficiently wired. It’s interesting to note that we see most online donations and online fundraising occur during the typical 9-5, Monday to Friday workweek, leading us to believe that many charitable people are contributing from their work computers, which I suppose is more productive than playing Solitaire!