© June 2016 | 02T 0207 601 7100 E [email protected] W www.blackbaud.co.uk
Empowering the Crowd: How to Make Social Fundraising
Work for Your Educational Institution
Dan Keyworth, Paul Doubleday and Tamsin Haigh
If you think peer-to-peer fundraising is just for charities and
crowdfunding is just for students, it’s time to think again.
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Empowering the Crowd
CONTENTS
2 Introduction: Rethinking Online Fundraising
3 Part 1: The Business Case for Online Fundraising
6 Part 2: From Crowdfunding to Peer-To-Peer Fundraising
8 Part 3: Key Enablers Around Social Fundraising
10 Part 4: Creating a Platform for Success
12 Part 5: Positioning Social Fundraising in Your Advancement Programme
14 Conclusion: The Time is Now
15 About the Authors
15 About Blackbaud
CONTRIBUTORS
Authors Dan Keyworth, Director for Customer Engagement – Education,
Blackbaud International Business Unit
Paul Doubleday, Digital Fundraising Consultant,
Blackbaud Europe
Tamsin Haigh, Strategic Development Manager,
The Pratthanadee Foundation
Edited by Meredith Jones
Cover art and book design by Jamie Rusenko
© June 2016, Blackbaud, Inc.
INTRODUCTION: RETHINKING ONLINE FUNDRAISING
If you think peer-to-peer fundraising is just for charities and crowdfunding is just for students, think again. Social fundraising, when done in the right way, can do wonders for
your organisation’s reach and fundraising. Today’s donors respond best to multi-channel
approaches, so using social fundraising as a supplement to your other fundraising initiatives
and having a solid strategy to guide your higher education institution or school is important.
But don’t wait any longer—your supporters are out there! Embrace the innovative new fundraising opportunities that online and peer-to-peer offer, and get your HE institution or
school the attention and support it deserves.
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Empowering the Crowd
PART 1: THE BUSINESS CASE FOR ONLINE FUNDRAISINGGreat fundraising depends not only on our direct interactions
with donors and prospects but also on cultivating deep, lifelong
connections across our alumni and broader communities. When
these flourish, they can extend our reach far beyond the individuals
we know directly to a much wider network of supporters.
There is growing evidence of the long-term value of nurturing
meaningful relationships between our alumni and other supporters.
Our constituents increasingly expect such engagement and want it to
be timely, frequent, online, offline, social, and transactional.
Over recent years, these donor expectations have inspired a growing
number of alumni relations offices in universities and schools to
launch exclusive alumni community platforms powered by LinkedIn®
or Facebook® designed specifically to facilitate more interactive
networking opportunities.
These social media integrated hubs are helping institutions
successfully enrich their online engagement with former and
current students and offer career mentoring and support. Recent
increases in the cost of education feed the importance of these
employability programmes. Indeed, there is a recurring theme
across the sector around increasing expectations to deliver value,
which affects more than alumni engagement.1
We are now seeing the natural progression into online fundraising,
with social media influencing online giving and empowering alumni,
donors, students, staff, and friends to create new opportunities
for philanthropy.
ONLINE GIVING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WE THINK
With each new year, we see an increase in the importance of online
giving. In the US, where the body of data is greatest, overall giving
grew by 1.6% in 2015 whereas online giving grew by 9.2%. And,
for the second consecutive year, online giving to higher education
institutions and schools grew the most across all sectors. Within
universities, year-over-year online giving increased by 16.6% in
2014 and again by 15.2% in 2015. It’s a clear sign of the emergent
opportunities available.
2015 OVERALL GIVING TRENDS BY SECTOR
-4%
-2%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
initial bar chart where the data is still editable further customization, requires ungrouping
2015 ONLINE GIVING TRENDS BY SECTOR
-6%
-3%
0%
3%
6%
9%
12%
15%
ARTS ANDCULTURE
ENVIRON.ANIMAL
FAITH-BASED
HEALTHCARE
HIGHEREDUCATION
HUMANSERVICES
K–12 EDUCATION
MEDICALRESEARCH
PUBLIC ANDSOCIETY
9.3%8.8%8.3%
11.2%
15.2%
2015 OVERALL GIVING TRENDS BY SECTOR
-4%
-2%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
ARTS ANDCULTURE
ENVIRON.ANIMAL
FAITH-BASED
HEALTHCARE
HIGHEREDUCATION
HUMANSERVICES
K–12 EDUCATION
MEDICALRESEARCH
INT’LAFFAIRS
PUBLIC ANDSOCIETY
0.0%
1.9%
3.9%
0.5% 0.5%-0.4%
-2.8%
5.1%
-1.0% -0.9%
7.9%
INT’LAFFAIRS
10.8%
12.3%
-0.7%
9.4%
1 One way that growing expectations have manifested themselves is in a recent shift in lexicon by many departments from delivering alumni relations to delivering alumni engagement (and ditto for donor relations): It is perhaps indicative of a stronger commitment by institutions to engaging in interactive dialogue and proving greater value-add service. It will be interesting to see if, and how, the lexicon further adapts to include wider (non-alumni) constituencies as well.
Source: 2015 Charitable Giving Report, Blackbaud. www.blackbaud.com/charitablegiving
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Empowering the Crowd
| 6#NextGenUK2013
Peer-to-peerMainstream MediaSchoolCame across website / enquired directly
Peer-to-peerMainstream MediaPurchased ItemMail
Peer-to-peerMainstream MediaPurchased ItemMail
Peer-to-peerMainstream MediaMailPurchased Item
Gen Y
Boomers
Gen X
Matures
27%
21%
26%
17%
15%
14%
18%
12%
8%
8%
8%
11%
6%
6%
7%
7%
How donors first learned about the cause:
Part of this recent trend may be the education sector finally realising
that many donors are moving away from cheques and paper donation
forms. Nonetheless, in comparison to other sectors, online giving to
universities and schools still remains a small percentage of overall
giving (3.8% for higher education versus an average of 7.1% across
other sectors), so further growth can be expected in 2016 and beyond.
We see similar trends in the evolution of event registrations and
memberships. For institutions looking to increase sign-up numbers
for events and ‘Friends of’ programmes, one of the first places worth
assessing is the online experience you’ve created for your audience.
However enticing your programme is, if individuals need to print off, fill
out, and then post a paper registration form, you’ll likely experience a
significant drop-off rate in participation.
So, considering we spend much of our time online, why isn’t online
giving higher? One reason may be the natural and understandably
large focus we place on major donors. This focus on major giving
shouldn’t be diminished, but we need to develop creative models
for how we engage the wider crowd.
It’s also important to note the fact that the majority of our existing
donor base lies in baby boomers and matures, who spend less time
online than their younger peers. The demographics of our donor base
are obviously shifting over time to later generations, so the degree to
which this is generational rather than age related will decrease in time.
In addition, we make online giving more difficult and frustrating that it
has to be. We know our web pages and emails need more attention
but struggle to find the time to focus on the end user’s experience.
The cost to our institutions in lost support from not making our
online experience friendly, fresh, and fully mobile-optimised,
grows each year.2
A fourth reason online giving isn’t as high as expected may be that as
a sector, we aren’t bold enough when articulating and promoting our
institutions’ amazing missions. We need to reformat our messaging to
fit the way the online community scans information. We can’t simply
upload our mission and vision and expect responses. Our online
toolset is critical to addressing this.
This point is worth exploring a little further. We are generally
experienced in persuading major donors, alumni, and increasingly
non-alumni to support the full spectrum of our cause. With a few
exceptions, we haven’t yet been as successful in persuading larger
groups to support our institutions.
Whilst our marketing strategy as educational establishments will never
be the same as the wider charitable sector, there is still room for
improvement in harnessing wider support. The benefits open up the
opportunity to engage more alumni. We arguably fall into the trap
of thinking our alumni don’t need or want to hear our message, but
that’s something worth testing.
2 There is increasing demand for institutions to have web-experienced and social media-savvy resources within teams, or readily accessible.
Source: Next Generation of Giving in the UK, Blackbaud. www.blackbaud.co.uk/notforprofit-resources/uk-research
| 6#NextGenUK2013
Peer-to-peerMainstream MediaSchoolCame across website / enquired directly
Peer-to-peerMainstream MediaPurchased ItemMail
Peer-to-peerMainstream MediaPurchased ItemMail
Peer-to-peerMainstream MediaMailPurchased Item
Gen Y
Boomers
Gen X
Matures
27%
21%
26%
17%
15%
14%
18%
12%
8%
8%
8%
11%
6%
6%
7%
7%
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Empowering the Crowd
Consider the following examples: do we currently maximise the
potential philanthropy surrounding the ground-breaking research
our universities do to transform the world and solve some of the
most impenetrable societal problems3 (with charities of course being
among our biggest funders)?4 Likewise, do we widely promote how
we actively make better education accessible to a more diverse group
of children with programmes of vouchers, bursaries, scholarships,
and occasional sponsoring of neighbouring academies? Are we
championing the key role that education plays in unlocking the full
potential of future generations across all aspects of global society?
Undoubtedly, we could be doing more of all of these things.
Every education institution has a great story and an accompanying set
of projects it can promote with its alumni and other audiences—many
of which they can easily share with their own personal networks.
Time and resource are often the two most limiting factors which
impede us as development functions. Regardless of how strong
we are as fundraisers and the size of our team, we can only
reach so many individuals directly. Here is where an increasingly
interconnected world and the benefits of online technology can play
a greater role. Our donor base shouldn’t stop just because our
fundraisers’ reach does.
In advancing the quality of and access to teaching, academic research,
and extracurricular activity—as well as larger themes like enhancing
employability, widening public and community engagement, and
delivering entrepreneurship and valorisation—there are untapped
projects which can resonate with new and existing supporters.
We all want to reach more people with our missions. If done well, the
potential for future levels of engagement within and beyond our alumni
base is truly staggering. Digital fundraising will be a core part of our
armoury in the future, and we need to start thinking about it now.
3 Medical and other research-based charities have been very successful with peer-to-peer for several years (including some that have raised over £20 million online). Some of the most important research into curing diseases and solving other 21st century problems takes place at universities and peer-to-peer can be a great way to share this story. It could also be ideal for alumni who want to participate in fundraising events, e.g. running a marathon in support of research for medical areas they were personally affected by, and of course for university grateful patient fundraising.
4 Many universities do now do this very well at a principal gift level – with some phenomenal £10 million+ gifts in recent years towards ground-breaking medical and societal research – but we are arguably much less effective at telling this story at a regular giving level.
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Empowering the Crowd
PART 2: FROM CROWDFUNDING TO PEER-TO-PEER FUNDRAISINGOf course, it isn’t simply a matter of sharing stories and hoping
for a handout, otherwise our primary investment concern would
be marketing.5 We also need to integrate online social fundraising
technology into our overall development strategy. More specifically, to
support the rise of online giving, we need to harness new technology and
terminology, such as crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising.
Whilst both forms of social fundraising have been around for several
years, they are only recently becoming hot topics in the education
sector. The UK Crowdfunding Association defines crowdfunding
as ‘raising money directly from a large number of people all putting in
relatively small amounts of money’. Jeff Shuck, CEO of Plenty
Consulting® and a thought leader in the digital space, defines peer-to-
peer fundraising as ‘empowering others to ask on your behalf’. Peer-
to-peer fundraising is really a multi-tier version of crowdfunding
which extends your reach to a larger crowd.
Both single- and multi-tier crowdfunding are on the rise. We have always
lived in a peer-to-peer world, and over the past few years, this has been
increasingly reflected in our activities online: Facebook®, TripAdvisor®
and Airbnb® are all examples of this. Over the last decade, peer-to-peer
has started to permeate every aspect of our lives and fundraising is
no exception.
So how do we engage a larger group of supporters around your
institution’s core mission using the online word-of-mouth revolution? This
is the opportunity to not simply be a part of the revolution, but to lead it.
It is worth noting that reaching large numbers by itself doesn’t deliver
success. And regardless of your own fundraising efforts, your constituents
are being invited by other individuals and organisations to give their
support to an ever-expanding list of things, philanthropic and non-
philanthropic. You can’t stand still, or you’ll be left behind.
We know that stories are usually best told by our peers, because
we take the views of those we know more seriously. Blackbaud’s
Psychology of Online Giving survey demonstrated that for 20% of
UK consumers, supporting friends in their online fundraising is more
important than what charity benefits. For consumers ages 25–34, the
figure rises to 25%. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the main reason people
donate online is to support a friend or family member.6
5 Almost all universities and many schools already share stories to large audiences online, including through Twitter and other social media, but often without accompanying fundraising around them.
6 In The Psychology of Online Giving survey, 2,088 UK consumers were asked by YouGov on behalf of Blackbaud about their motivations for giving online and their expectations after they donated. Of these, 1,218 had donated money to charity online at least once. www.blackbaud.co.uk/psychologyofonlinegiving
CROWDFUNDING
‘Raising money directly from a large number of people all putting in relatively small amounts of money.’
—The UK Crowdfunding Association
£ £
£ ££
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The UK Crowdfunding Association defines
crowdfunding as “raising money directly from a
large number of people all putting in relatively
small amounts of money”. Jeff Shuck, CEO of
Plenty Consulting® and a thought leader in the
digital space, defines peer-to-peer fundraising
as “empowering others to ask on your behalf”.
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Empowering the Crowd
The Chronicle of Philanthropy revealed that a majority of millennial
alumni said they were willing to raise money on behalf of an
institution they care about and that they were comfortable
sharing content about those institutions on social media.7
The same survey demonstrated that smaller, cause-focused groups that
millennials form during their years in education evolve into meaningful
post-education friendships. These bonds can be influential to bridging
the university/alumni divide, especially as millennials reach their prime
earning years. These individuals remain invested and loyal in these
friendships throughout their lives. And often their greatest attraction to
their institution lives within this group of people whose values they share.
The second-most-cited reason for giving to a campaign for a
particular cause was seeing the value behind the donation. We have
an inspiring collection of interweaving stories around past, current
and future impact that many different individuals can share.
One advantage advancement-led crowdfunding has over personal
crowdfunding8 is that our case for support is altruistically-driven and
generally focused on helping many people—applicants, students,
tutors, researchers, staff, or the wider community—over time. This
means that support can be seen to have a wider or more lasting
impact. In addition, institutions offer a reliable brand, and
donors are more confident they are making a meaningful,
positive difference.
Opportunities for social fundraising in schools and universities are
plentiful, and may already be a more common part of your offline
fundraising than you realise. From sports club fundraising to cutting-
edge medical research, from alumni year-group reunions to museum
or library special acquisitions9, and from tribute giving10 to special
giving days11, your alumni have likely experienced peer-to-peer
fundraising from you already.
Peer-to-peer fundraising may make its first appearance in giving
initiatives for student leavers of your school or university. Whilst
still relatively new, ‘Leavers Giving’ programmes are on the rise.
Converting an existing offline programme to online provides an
opportunity to make this experience more fun and social. Those
students you work with to lead such initiatives can drive the content
and have all donations come into a single place. Simultaneously you
will be able to collect a lot of valuable data from your leavers.
Likewise any year-group, house or class giving initiatives around an
anniversary or reunion provide opportunities to fundraise. The right
committee with the right platform can achieve significant returns.
Individuals may thrive on competing internally. A big reunion event
at the end of the online fundraising campaign can provide another
catalyst for reaching a specific target.
7 Source: Millennial Alumni Study, Chronicle of Philanthropy. www.themillennialimpact.com/files/2015/05/RESEARCH-Millenial-Alumni-Study-041615.pdf
8 For which there are some examples of these already within education institutions, typically led by students or departmental staff.
9 One UK school raised c£50,000 online for its museum through peer-to-peer fundraising. If your school or university’s library or museum needs funds to build up its collections, or protect or preserve them, e.g. a rare book, author’s works, artefact or painting, then peer-to-peer helps to engage not only alumni, students and staff, but also the local community and wider public. Those less interested in other areas may love literature or art, and be ready to support protecting, conserving or acquiring a new manuscript, exhibition etc.
10 A natural time when volunteers wish to fundraise from their peers is for special appeals around a key staff member (a teacher or professor) retiring, having a major milestone anniversary, or passing away – with people wishing to contribute in their honour. Quite often the challenge can be getting a sensitive fundraising communication out in a timely fashion and enabling people around the world to conveniently donate, with the opportunity to post well-wishes, exchange memories and photos, and share regular updates. A peer-to-peer platform provides all of these things, and can be a great tie-in to your Facebook presence. Some of the most popular responses to university alumni Facebook pages are when there are discussions about favourite tutors. This emotive topic can even unlock hitherto unengaged major prospects.
11 The opportunity here is even greater if structured around #GivingTuesday, a now internationally-recognised day of online philanthropy.
PEER-TO-PEER FUNDRAISING
‘Empowering others to ask on your behalf.’
—Jeff Shuck, CEO Plenty Consulting
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On 2015, the
development team at University of Michigan set
an example for how planning and preparation in
combination with social fundraising technology
can potentially deliver remarkable results12:
• 1,000 donors gave a gift online within the
first 49 minutes
• $1 million was raised by 10:03 am
• Donations totalled $4,361,327, an increase
of 34% over #GivingTuesday 2014
• Donors totalled 6,927, an increase of 27%
over #GivingTuesday 2014
More generally and on a scale relevant to your institution, making it
easy for existing offline social fundraising to move online should
generate a much higher ask-to-donation conversion rate. It does
so by lowering the barriers to success and raising the quality of
the message. For example:
• A monologue can become a dialogue or even group conversation13
• One written communication about a project can become a
continuous stream of dynamic updates
• Words on a page can become inspiring images and videos
• A written target can become interactive ‘theatre’ with
demonstrable progress (and gentle competition…)
• The geographical spread of your audience can be reached
in an instant
• Multiple required steps to respond with a gift can become one
simple step
• Fundraising can become really fun
• Above all, the shift online results in less ‘faff’ for your volunteers
and more rewarding stewardship for your donors. On top of
this, it can deliver more and better data for your development
team, which is explored further below.
12 See http://npengage.com/nonprofit-fundraising/university-of-michigan-setting-a-higher-standard-for-giving-days.
13 This is a significant trend in social media marketing: https://philanthropy.com/article/Nonprofits-Come-Up-Short-With/234017
14 One common concern institutions raise with students and staff undertaking their own fundraising is that data protection and financial responsibilities are missed. The right platform enables you to devolve responsibility for fundraising content but retain these safeguards.
PART 3: KEY ENABLERS AROUND SOCIAL FUNDRAISINGYour own priorities for crowdfunding may differ from those of other
institutions. For some, it’s simply engaging alumni or parents. For
others, it’s reaching further into donors’ networks and widening the
supporter base. It can also be about empowering staff, students and
alumni to drive forward projects that are beyond the development
team’s capacity to prioritise within an appropriately-branded platform.14
Whatever stage you’re at, advances in digital technology make
crowdfunding easier today than ever before. It takes just a few
minutes to add social fundraising to your online giving page. It’s
possible to start very small, provide an easy option for those who
choose to fundraise on your behalf, promote that outwardly, and then
create a hub for fundraising around multiple time-bound projects.
Provided you have the right platform and a set of advocates among your
constituents, the investment you need to make can be modest. Projects
being fundraised can of course be championed centrally by your
development team, but much of the heavy lifting can be decentralised
to interested individuals or groups and be done in such a way that it
doesn’t lead to financial, brand or data challenges for your cause.
This is the essence of social fundraising—expanding your reach
and achieving more through the networks of constituents that
support your institution, whether as donors or as fundraisers.
For your social fundraising programme to truly succeed, you’ll want
your team to feel confident with the resources and processes in place
to manage, steward and cultivate a growing pool of new donors and
fundraisers. Get your finance team on board with processing a
significant increase in small donations by ensuring that the workflow
is streamlined alongside their existing CRM gift processing, and
demonstrate the value of the rich new data.
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Empowering the Crowd
But this is the most important thing to remember: Crowdfunding
managed in the correct way does not break the cardinal rule of
fundraising—the classic 90:10 rule15— meaning the majority of
revenue will always come from the small number of constituents
who make large donations, and that’s where your advancement
team’s focus should be. Crowdfunding will contribute to this primary
objective, not side track you from it.
This is not to say that the money raised through crowdfunding is not
valuable. It makes a set of projects possible that help advance your
institution’s mission. It is not the key figure upon which you should
measure your social fundraising ROI, but it can supplement your
fundraising revenue stream in the following ways:
• By creating a pool of new first-time donors from which you can
build relationships
• By engaging a group of new volunteers and bringing them
closer to your cause16
• By devolving fundraising for smaller projects to resources
outside of your development team, freeing the professionals up
to focus on the highest priorities
• By providing your major gifts researcher and fundraiser(s) with
valuable data to help drive your principal fundraising pipeline
Consider the following hypothetical example. A crowdfunding appeal
raises £16,000 in support of a geography field trip for 5 students
exploring climate change in Brazil. It also brings in 67 new first-time
donors, 24 of whom had no prior connection to your institution. It
activates 4 new volunteers, including 1 previously inactive prospect
and 1 influential tutor. It takes less than 2 hours of your departmental
fundraiser’s time, and then they can focus on raising £600,000 for a
new laboratory. And it identifies 3 particular individuals who, despite
not giving large gifts themselves, successfully solicited 27 alumni, 7
of whom made £1,000+ donations in response to a call to action to
safeguard geology research.
What is the real ROI here? To a major gifts fundraiser who is
confident harnessing data intelligence, it is much more than just the
£16,000 fundraised.
Consider that those seven donors of £1,000 are then followed up with
and given a tour of the department. As a result, four of them are now
warm prospects in the pipeline for a £25,000 gift each towards the
new laboratory. This is not a far-fetched outcome and matches how
we already use data captured today.
So, for social fundraising to drive long-term benefits to your cause,
it’s critical that the platform you use facilitates inspiring storytelling
and integrates into your primary advancement system and wider
development and alumni relations programme. If you crowdfund as
a siloed operation, detached from your broader strategic objectives
around data insight and major gift fundraising, you’ll lose a lot of its value.
Why Peer-to-Peer?
• You attract more fundraisers
• You engage more constituents
• You acquire new donors
• You raise more revenue
15 Or whichever similar ratio best applies for your institution (this might vary from 70:30 to as much as 98:2).
16 A Network for Good study notes that volunteers give to charity twice as often as their non-volunteering peers. http://npengage.com/nonprofit-fundraising/with-respect-to-abraham-lincoln-not-all-are-equal-in-fundraising/
£££
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Empowering the Crowd
PART 4: CREATING A PLATFORM FOR SUCCESSThere are a lot of considerations to think of when expanding your
online fundraising. The following list can help you create the right
social fundraising platform for your institution.
1. APPEARANCE AND BRAND: Make sure your donation and
fundraising pages look like your website, so everyone knows who
you are.17 Keep in mind that 51% of web browsing on nonprofit
websites is done on smartphones and tablets18, so make sure the
pages work well on every device. Test what works and what
doesn’t, so you can adjust the flow and appearance of forms
if necessary.
2. PROJECT HUB: As you scale up to multiple social fundraising
campaigns, make sure your provider has the capacity to provide a
single microsite or hub to bring together the different fundraising
projects (each retaining their own tailored messaging) for your
institution. You can then use this hub to showcase
the performance of these different projects, including current
totals, targets, deadlines, rewards, scoreboards and other
additional widgets.
3. DATA INTEGRATION: You’ll want your platform to integrate
effectively and seamlessly with your advancement CRM data and
processes. Doing so minimises the burden of supporting other
parts of the institution in fundraising and advocating on your
behalf. Make sure your platform gives you access to the full
details of your donors and fundraisers, so you can cultivate
relationships with all supporters. This is likely to be the single
biggest long-term benefit you see from this channel.
4. FINANCIAL/LEGAL REQUIREMENTS: You need to be able to
ensure that all funds are raised in accordance with your
institution’s legal, data protection, PCI-DSS, HMRC and other
financial processing rules. Make sure your platform handles all
payment processing securely and enables you to easily collect
Gift Aid declarations. An advantage to controlling the platform
centrally is that whilst the content of the pages can be handed off
to your constituents, the setup of new projects and the
terminology around data protection and trust fund management
remains firmly in your control.
17 In The Psychology of Online Giving survey, 1 in 5 donors couldn’t recall which charity they donated to (Blackbaud – 2013). www.blackbaud.co.uk/psychologyofonlinegiving
18 See https://www.mobilecause.com/download-online-giving-tips-infographic/
Support me, I’m Running for a cause
Support me, I’m Baking for a cause
Support me, I’m Walking for a cause
Support me, I’m Walking for a cause
Support me, I’m Riding for a cause
Support me, I’m Climbing for a cause
Support me, I’m Riding for a cause
Support me, I’m Running for a cause
Support me, I’m Baking for a cause
££
£
£
£
£
£
£
£
£
£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ DONORS
FUNDRAISERS
CROWDFUNDING PROJECTS
PROJECT HUB
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Empowering the Crowd
19 Sportsmen and women can compete internally to raise the most money, and teams can compete with one another in a cross-sports ranking. And with new sports committee members each year, they can have regularly refreshed fundraising appeals.
20 For one large fundraising event in Australia, the 9% of fundraisers who linked a fitness app onto their fundraising page raised over 50% more than the average ($1,525 compared to $966).
21 For example, you can invite your constituents to join in a virtual row, cycle, or run across the country, with lots of individuals separately participating towards a collective distance.
5. FLEXIBILITY: Your platform should be able to handle direct
donations and peer-to-peer fundraising, so people can create their
own pages to raise funds on behalf of your institution. That way you
can choose to offer either option (or both), and make changes on a
project-by-project basis. Whilst not every appeal may need peer-to-
peer fundraising to succeed, having this capability in your platform
means other supporters can tackle worthwhile priorities that your
own fundraisers can’t get to. Consider the scenario of your
students’ numerous sports clubs, each one wanting new
equipment each year. There are too many for you to manage
fundraising centrally, and even if you could you’d forego the valuable
networks you have in these dedicated current and former students.
Fundraising pages led by the sports clubs themselves can be a
great fit to this increasingly common requirement.19
6. ENGAGEMENT: An important factor in the success of your social
fundraising will be what your platform offers to make giving more
social, fun, engaging and inclusive. You should
be able to easily post updates, video, social media links/feeds and
other dynamic content and integrate content with social media to
elevate the engagement levels of your projects.20 Keep in mind
that your platform should also help you recognise your volunteers’
efforts outside of monetary contributions.
7. EVENTS: Unlike peer-to-peer fundraising across most charities
where marathons, coffee mornings, and mud runs are the norm,
your projects may not be related to events. After all, you already
have engaged and committed alumni. However, there is a sizeable
opportunity to raise funds tied to events—it provides the urgency
that can inspire people to give. Several institutions have
demonstrated that alumni, staff, and students will undertake
physical challenges on behalf of their university or school when
simply asked. Thus you want to be able to directly integrate event
registration into these projects when applicable, including virtual
events where people share a common virtual environment on the
web, rather than meeting in a physical location.21
8. TEAMS: Universities and schools thrive at creating a team
environment, so your platform should support team fundraising.
Think houses/colleges, clubs, societies, regions, and classes —
with combined and solo totals. By setting team targets and time
limits and regularly sharing progress with those fundraising,
you create a competitive element that incentivises fundraisers to
go the extra mile for your project. Harness the power
of gamification by showcasing your top fundraisers and
fundraising teams through scoreboards.
0
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
0
$500
$1,000
$1,500
$2,000
Linked itdirectly to my Facebook page
Linked it to mySupporter page
Linked it to mySupporter page
Survey TotalKept it privateUsed it to
track my own performance
27%9%
$1,525
$96645%
84%90%70%
50%
30%
10%
APP USERS WHO LINKED
For one large fundraising event in Australia, the 9% of
fundraisers who linked a fitness app onto their fundraising page raised
over 50% more than the average ($1525
compared to $966).0
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
0
$500
$1,000
$1,500
$2,000
Linked itdirectly to my Facebook page
Linked it to mySupporter page
Linked it to mySupporter page
Survey TotalKept it privateUsed it to
track my own performance
27%9%
$1,525
$96645%
84%90%70%
50%
30%
10%
MAILTO:"[email protected]"www.blackbaud.co.ukhttps://www.facebook.com/blackbaudhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/blackbaudhttps://twitter.com/blackbaud
12© June 2016 T 0207 601 7100 E [email protected] W www.blackbaud.co.uk
Empowering the Crowd
9. MAXIMISING DONATIONS: Once prospective donors visit your
website, you want to incentivise higher levels of giving, and a
great way of doing this is by promoting rewards and recognition
at different amounts. This can be a version of the classic buy-a-
brick appeal but can go a step further with innovative benefits
tied to specific amounts, such as a personalised CD of the choir
the donation helped support. Another great way to raise more is
if you can offset the transaction costs in creative ways that your
donors will opt into, so that the full value of the original donation
benefits your institution.
10. REACHING YOUR TARGET: Finally, it’s important that you can
receive the funds to benefit your institution even if you fall short of
the initial target. So make sure that’s an option for the platform.
Philanthropic crowdfunding has some differentiators from wider
personal crowdfunding: It is less desirable to reimburse the funds
if you’re raising money for core university or school priorities,
as opposed to independent student-led personal initiatives.
Likewise, make sure that you can add offline gifts and other
fundraising efforts to your overall total; more often than not,
this will not be your only giving platform, so you want a way to
incorporate donations received elsewhere into the totals shared.
Above all, make it easy to grow your crowdfunding efforts over
time. Your platform should be able to scale up from an initial pilot
to eventually supporting multiple fundraising projects for different
colleges/houses, departments, clubs, societies and year-groups side-
by-side. Prepare at the outset for how your solution will integrate this
large flow of valuable information seamlessly into your
advancement ecosystem. Do this, and you’ll be able to prove and
reap the benefits of social fundraising more effectively.
PART 5: POSITIONING SOCIAL FUNDRAISING IN YOUR ADVANCEMENT PROGRAMMETo add the most value, your social fundraising projects should fit
into your overall advancement programme. Understanding what it
is and the role it will play will ensure you have the right buy-in from
management and can meet expectations.
But it’s not a solution for everything! For many universities and
schools, it’s unlikely that crowdfunding will replace direct mail,
telethons, emails, SMS and face-to-face communication in your
regular giving programmes. Those can continue to excel for certain
audiences and not work for others, just as they have always done.
Rather, social fundraising is likely to complement and add value to
your overall fundraising initiatives as an extra channel, instead of being
a substitute. There is no one-size-fits-all fundraising effort, and many
constituents today respond best to multi-channel appeals—a lesson
learned from the for-profit industry where customers frequently pass
through several channels before making their purchase.
Above all, social fundraising is likely to be most effective as a
donor acquisition and engagement tool. Peer-to-peer fundraising
can help you build awareness around a wider variety of projects and
enable you to make additional asks without applying undesirable
pressure or becoming too repetitive.
It could be the extra push you give your annual fund to raise
participation to the next level by reaching non-alumni effectively for
the first time, strengthening ties to specific year-groups around their
anniversaries, or moving the needle forward with your younger alumni
and students.
Younger generations are drawn more easily to social fundraising for
the following reasons:
• It is a relevant, fun, and convenient way for them to give
• It helps them find the project that aligns with their interests and
passions
• It inspires them through their peers to give or motivates them to
reach out to their own networks
After onboarding new donors, your more traditional giving
approaches may be the most effective for driving retention, sustainer
gifts and upgrades. Whilst your crowdfunding platform should facilitate
recurring gifts, this is less likely to be the focus; instead expect most
of your donors to give small single gifts, though some may begin to
give these repeatedly over time.
And of course, whilst it will always be difficult to mechanically repeat
the success of viral campaigns like the Ice Bucket Challenge, your
chances of going viral are close to zero without an online giving
presence. Even if you’re not lucky enough to raise donor numbers by a
huge amount, you’ll see this investment drive up participation.
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Empowering the Crowd
When combined with personal solicitation, crowdfunding can unlock
major gifts from prospects with a high net worth who like the idea of
playing a leadership role in the crowd. For example, by encouraging
them to pledge a sizeable percentage of the total leveraged as a
matched fund incentive for others to support you.22
Whilst the channel by itself may or may not draw in vast sums, it will
help your overall development and alumni relations programme be
more successful. Here are a few other ways it can boost your major
gifts programme:
• Projects will be able to happen that simply couldn’t
otherwise. That creates satisfied students, staff and alumni,
and gives you some chips to cash in for the future. You will also
get some great stories, which you can share with your biggest
donors.
• The data intelligence you gain on philanthropic interests
can make future campaigns more successful. Knowing
what someone wants to support is one of the most valuable
data commodities but among the scarcest in many institutions’
databases today.
• You’ll learn donors’ networks by capturing insight from their
peer-to-peer relationships. Whilst you may know from other
data that two alumni studied together or sit on the same board,
that’s not nearly as powerful as knowing that someone directly
inspired another person to donate.
Social fundraising means social engagement. The dynamic
sharing of content through crowdfunding can be among the most
stirring in terms of stewardship and wider engagement. You raise
brand and mission awareness throughout the campaign. And if your
project is positioned around an event, you have the opportunity to
bring alumni together in a fun way that has a tangible impact on
your fundraising.
Today, organisations are already incorporating social fundraising into
their advancement programme. In the summer of 2015, following
the shooting of Cecil the Lion, around 12,000 individuals made a
contribution online over the space of a few weeks in support of wildlife
research at the University of Oxford. Over 99% of these donors were
brand new donors. A major donor pledged a large matching gift to
inspire more support, helping to take the final total to over £550,000.
The development team stewarded every donor following their gift and
has maintained ongoing communication with many since, with the
department’s email list having significantly grown in size!
Whilst outrage around the shooting and a collective desire to protect
endangered lions was the motivation for most donors, the
development team knew that some of the new donors would support
broader conservation initiatives if asked in the right way. Thus, a set of
individuals with no prior connection to the university are now engaged
with something they’re passionate about, which is also a key priority
for the institution.
With many donors having given as a result of peer-to-peer fundraising
pages set up by individuals, the department knows who can engage
these donors more personally and who might have an inclination to
volunteer. Layering in wealth-screening to identify high-net-worth
individuals from this pool of donors and fundraisers fits perfectly
into the prospect research process.
Whilst the scenario that led to the surge of donations here was
unique, it does demonstrate the power of online giving and social
media as a window to new audiences, as well as the opportunity to
move donors up the giving ladder.
This business intelligence may become the single most
important outcome of your investment in social fundraising. It
has a real capacity, over and above any money raised, to open doors
to new prospects and networks for your institution and in time lead to
new major donors for your cause.
22 Matching can be great for crowdfunding. It gives two impacts to think about: that of the challenge gift and of their own. For example, your £50 contribution will be matched with an additional £50, making £100 available for a student in hardship. You could even do this with a gift list, to give a range of options. Or you could structure a challenge to your fundraising board – challenge them all to donate or raise a certain amount, and use the platform to manage visibility of this.
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Empowering the Crowd
CONCLUSION: THE TIME IS NOWWe are only at the beginning for these new forms of fundraising.
Crowdfunding has grown by over 50% year-on-year across all
sectors23, so it is hard to bet against this area growing in importance
over time. Other innovations such as #GivingTuesday add even
more potential.
The wider nonprofit and for-profit industries tell us that the best
marketing is often word of mouth. Few fundraisers can hope to
match the persuasiveness of the crowd connecting directly with their
contemporaries, friends, fellow club members, families and
colleagues encouraging them to give to a cause.
There are still some unknowns, but this should not stop us from
getting started with building enhanced online giving strategies. There
are considerable opportunities to be reaped today. And the best
way to know what will work for your particular institution is to test,
test, and test again, building on what works.
Of course, integrated social fundraising isn’t a golden ticket by itself.
Hard work and perseverance by advancement teams will still be
essential to whether word of mouth actually happens. But, harnessed
in the right way, it could certainly be a key enabler to your success.
Schools and universities may have come late to the peer-to-peer
party, but given the hotbed of potential fundraisers that exist within
our alumni communities, many wanting to be more than just donors,
this sector could now transform this space.
The time is now to empower your alumni, parents, students,
staff, and friends to help you raise more.
23 See http://www.miratelinc.com/blog/crowdfunding-nonprofit-fundraising-growth-and-future/
MAILTO:"[email protected]"www.blackbaud.co.ukhttps://www.facebook.com/blackbaudhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/blackbaudhttps://twitter.com/blackbaudhttp://www.givingtuesday.org.uk/http://www.miratelinc.com/blog/crowdfunding-nonprofit-fundraising-growth-and-future/
15
Empowering the Crowd
© June 2016 Blackbaud, Inc.
This white paper is for informational purposes only.
Blackbaud makes no warranties, expressed or implied,
in this summary. The information contained in this
document represents the current view of Blackbaud,
Inc., on the items discussed as of the date of this
publication.
All Blackbaud product names appearing herein are
trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackbaud,
Inc. The names of actual companies and products
mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their
respective owners.
ABOUT THE AUTHORSDan Keyworth, Director for Customer Engagement - Education, Blackbaud International Business Unit
Dan helps oversee Blackbaud’s engagement with education customers around the world and has over a decade of experience working in
development and alumni relations.
Paul Doubleday, Digital Fundraising Consultant, Blackbaud Europe
Paul is a digital fundraising consultant for everydayhero® at Blackbaud and works directly with a large number of universities, schools, student
unions and other charities.
Tamsin Haigh, Strategic Development Manager, The Pratthanadee Foundation
Tamsin works with the Pratthanadee Foundation, a registered charity in Thailand, on strategy and development. She previously fundraised for
the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford.
About Blackbaud
Serving the worldwide philanthropic community for 35 years, Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB)combines innovative software, services, and
expertise to help organisations achieve their missions. Blackbaud works in over 60 countries to power the passion of approximately 35,000
customers, including non-profits, private school and higher education institutions, healthcare organisations, corporations, foundations and
other charitable giving entities. The company offers a full spectrum of cloud and on-premise solutions, as well as a resource network that
empowers and connects organisations of all sizes. Blackbaud’s portfolio of software and services supports non-profit fundraising and
relationship management, digital marketing, advocacy, accounting, payments and analytics, as well as grant management, corporate social
responsibility and education. Organisations that use Blackbaud technology raise, invest, manage, and award more than $100 billion each
year. Recognised as a top company, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina and has operations in the United States,
United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Canada. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.co.uk.
© June 2016 T 0207 601 7100 E [email protected] W www.blackbaud.co.uk
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Introduction: Rethinking Online FundraisingPart 1: The Business Case for Online FundraisingPart 2: From Crowdfunding to Peer-To-Peer FundraisingPart 3: Key Enablers Around Social FundraisingPart 4: Creating a Platform for SuccessPart 5: Positioning Social Fundraising in Your Advancement ProgrammeConclusion: The Time is NowAbout the AuthorsAbout Blackbaud
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