Digital Fundraising Still Suffers at Charities, Survey Finds

Title: “2019 Digital Outlook Report”

Organizations: Care2, HJC, NTEN

Summary: Forty-four percent of nonprofits do not have a web page or other digital tools that allow their supporters to solicit donations on their behalf from people they know, signaling that many charities are missing out on this fundraising opportunity, according to a survey released today.

The report also revealed that few nonprofits collect meaningful data. Organizations reported how much they were spending on social-media advertising, but few had useful data on how that spending affected critical metrics like donations or newsletter sign-ups.

Unwieldy or retrofitted technology often inhibits nonprofits from collecting data on fundraising and marketing. Yet the survey found that 67 percent of charities are not budgeting for an in-house developer who could customize their technology.

The study comes from Care2, a social-media platform; HJC, a digital fundraising consultant; and NTEN, a network of nonprofit professionals that provides training in and research on technology. Just under 200 charities, mostly in the United States and Canada, were surveyed. About 46 percent of the organizations had annual budgets of $5 million or less, and nearly 30 percent had 10 staff members or fewer.

Calls to Action

The report stresses that what nonprofits don’t know can hurt them. It suggests sharing fundraising goals across the organization and encouraging collaboration through brainstorming sessions.

Teaching an intern or a staff member to use simple tools, such as Google Analytics, can also help boost data collection. The report also nudges nonprofits to address workplace challenges through internal surveying and skills training for the staff.

Among the findings:

• Forty-three percent of charities have developed a strategy for the year to generate fundraising leads online.
• Sixty-four percent of nonprofits employ staff members focused on digital efforts.
• Nonprofits are unhappy with their social-media fundraising tools: Participants in the survey rated their technology an average of three stars out of five.
• Most nonprofits feel that budget constraints hamper their digital strategy, whereas in the previous four years of the annual study, they’d reported staff shortages their primary barrier.