Employees Share Responsibilities for Online Activities, Report Says

Employees responsible for a charity’s online activities are likely to be spread throughout an organization, rather than concentrated in a single department, according to a new report.

An online survey of 60 nonprofit groups found that only 20 percent had organized all of their employees who work on online programs into a single department whose leader is responsible for those programs. The study was conducted by Convio, an Austin, Tex., company that provides Web-based software to charities.

The other organizations were split almost evenly between a decentralized model — 39 percent of groups — where employees working on online efforts were spread across several different departments and a hybrid model — 40 percent — where a majority of employees were located in a single department, but some staff members were in other departments.

“Given the rate of change in this constantly evolving medium, many nonprofits’ online marketing programs have evolved organically without significant forethought as to how their staff should be structured, or the interactive skills required to be successful online,” write Brian Hauf and Quinn Donovan, the report’s co-authors.

Higher Success Rate

The study’s findings suggest that how charities structure their online programs can be a factor in how successful those efforts are.

Survey respondents at organizations that centralized their employees who focus on online activities gave their programs higher marks for planning, decision making, internal communications, and accountability than did respondents from charities with hybrid or decentralized structures.

For example, people from organizations with a centralized approach gave their online programs’ planning efforts an average score of 3.7 on a scale in which 1.0 stood for ineffective and 5.0 meant highly effective.

Respondents at groups taking a hybrid approach rated their planning efforts at 3.4, while those at charities taking a decentralized approach gave their efforts at planning a score of 2.7.

The study found that charities taking a centralized approach were more successful than the other groups in both raising money online and collecting e-mail addresses.

The groups taking hybrid and decentralized approaches had similar success garnering online donations, but hybrid organizations outperformed decentralized groups in collecting e-mail addresses.

The report’s authors encourage nonprofit groups to consider the structure of their online program as they plan future online activities.

“Know the natural ‘blind spots’ of your existing structure and overcompensate in the typical areas of weakness,” they recommend. “Organizations with decentralized and hybrid structures need to pay special attention to planning, goal setting, accountability, internal communication, and knowledge sharing.”

It is particularly important for groups with a decentralized approach to think about professional development and career paths for their employees focused on online activities, the authors write. Otherwise, those employees’ most obvious next position will likely be in the department in which they work, and the loss of their expertise could be a setback for the organization’s online programs.

Charities should also be on the lookout for opportunities to further centralize their online operations, write the report’s authors.

“As your organization’s overall structure evolves — which is common in tough economic times — reevaluate your online team’s structure and look for ways to concentrate your online staff into more of a hybrid or centralized structure.”