Givv me some feedback

Here’s a new site that reckons it has found the secret to helping persuade more people to give money to charities on a regular basis.

Givv.org allows you to pick a bunch of charities… and then each month those on your list will receive the amount you have nominated them to get. Be that $2.11, or $45.26. Each month you can then play with the list, and the donation amounts… so you’re totally in control of the amounts you are giving.

The prickly direct marketer inside me is furious that one of the benefits that Givv.org are promoting is “keeping off a fundraising list”, but setting that aside… I am left wondering “where the heck are the supporters going to get feedback from?”

So I have written to them and asked.

My hopes are that this is a slice of social media heaven as the site does facilitate users sharing on their profiles who they give to and even how much. This in turn is used to create popularity boards which help new users decide who to give to.

I have often joked with friends that people’s attitudes to giving to charity is often a great way for me to judge my compatibility with them. If this site helps people to share this as part of their identity both on this site and on Facebook… then it may start to encourage a system by which people could be persuaded to benchmark their giving levels against one another.

My hope is that charities can integrate this site with their other social media strategies… which should include sharing video stories and pics + text movies of how money is helping the charity beneficiaries. If the site allows charities to post up videos and pics so that supporters and those interested can browse them each month… it could be onto a winner, and charities will be forced to compete on the basis of their stories.

My fear is that the site has been created without an awareness that supporters actually benefit from learning what the charity is doing with the donations provided. If the site has been created purely from the perspective of an angry donor who doesn’t like mail packs…. then it will rely on its users being interested / savvy enough to follow the charity’s facebook page / blog / etc instead of connecting them to the very stories that will keep them giving month after month.

Given that the site says “if you see an advert for Amnesty international on TV you can then add them to your list that month…” I fear that the site creators may not have understood the power of storytelling.

I shall post their reply here!

I’m Mr Brightside

For the last eight years I have gotten used to people referring to the ‘dark side’.

Sometimes they mean ‘working for a corporate’. Often they mean ‘working for a supplier to the charity sector’.

Well… after twelve years or so of working for marketing agencies… eight in agencies that only worked with charities… I have joined a charity.

I am now working for the Inspire Foundation. I am the Director of Fundraising and Communications.

I hope you check out our website.

And I hope you try really hard to find the donate button.

But I doubt you will try hard enough… so of course feel free to leave me your details here and I’ll let you know when I’ve had it moved.

And please wish me luck or even ask me questions about what making the switch is like.

Can everyday actions be turned into fundraising activities? (Part 2)

I’ve already ‘bigged-up’ one example here on opinionaid.

Of course there are more out there.

One such is ‘ripple’. Recently commended in BRW as one of Australia’s best web 2.0 sites, it takes an everyday action and tries to turn it into a fundraising activity.

Every search that is conducted via their site will generate funds for the selected charities using advertiser-sponsored links.

The site also generates funds from advertisements.

Simple ideas. The success of which will depend on increasing the volume of users, so give it a go.

But as a fundraiser what really impressed me was the “click-handles”. They have creatively pushed forward the concept of a dollar handle (which shows a donor what their dollar will “buy”). Good on the charities for providing the exact detail required. This will set the foundation for the site. Since the search engine is powered by Google, users will need to feel suitably reassured that it is worth them using this alternative.

Click-handles will go someway to providing that. Let’s hope they’ve got their eye on case studies of beneficiaries too!

How can I persuade people to give via my website?

With the growing awareness that average donations online are higher than those from other channels, more charities are focusing on driving traffic to their website.

Research conducted by Amnesty International in the states has focused on investigating what factors influence people who actually arrived at their site. So, instead of focusing on what they needed to change in terms of lead generation, they were examining what to do to improve the conversion rates of the leads generated.

What a brilliant strategy!

The study was conducted with amazing integrity and focus on how o measure the impact of small changes. And their finding was that small changes can make a big impact.

Using a politely worded “ask” compared with a more slogan driven approach had a significant impact on donations.

“Please make a tax-deductible gift today to stop the abhorrent practice of extraordinary rendition”

Yielded a better conversion than…

“Donate Now! Help us end extraordinary rendition!”

They also found that there was no need to be demanding. Using firmer language on the donation button (“Donate Now” instead of “Submit“) did not produce statistically higher
Conversions.

Take a look at the report and consider how you could use the insights to test what works for your supporters.
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