Experts Offer Tips on Getting the Most From Interactive Technology

Many charities are trying to figure out how to use new online tools

to recruit and interact with large numbers of donors and persuade them not just to make gifts on their own, but also to spread the idea of giving to others.

The new software programs and other online tools vary in cost and capabilities, but they all enable individual donors to go beyond simply making a gift or buying a product online. With the click of a mouse, donors can also solicit their friends and relatives via e-mail or the Internet, communicate with other donors and the charity, and monitor the results of their fund-raising efforts.

Technology experts and others who have raised money using the interactive technologies — often referred to as Web 2.0 or social media — offer the following tips:

Beware of the hype. Some experts worry that charities will rush to adopt new approaches without first checking to be sure they have basic technologies in place.

“Your donor database could be a mess, it is getting double entries for donors or you cannot figure out who is coming into the organization from your Web site,” says Beth Kanter, a Boston nonprofit technology consultant. “There is a concern that people will get distracted by this Web 2.0 stuff.”

Start small. Ms. Kanter and other experts advise charities to start experimenting with interactive technologies by conducting small projects that do not involve the entire organization — and think carefully about ways to interact with donors instead of relying on traditional solicitation methods.

“The mistake would be to use the same approach in transitioning from direct mail to online,” says Allison Fine, an author and former charity leader who writes about the use of interactive digital tools to promote social change. “Think about how you can connect and have conversations.”

Charities can start, she says, by joining social-networking sites like MySpace, where they can invite people to read and respond to content they post there and encourage readers to spread the word by linking to that content in their own personal sections of the site. As readers grow in number, they can be asked to get involved in other ways, such as participating in an advocacy campaign or making a gift to support it.

Build relationships. Ms. Fine advises charities to take their time in trying out new interactive technologies and using them to develop relationships with donors. “You are talking about a fundamental shift in culture from talking at donors to engaging in a conversation,” she says.

Although donors who interact with a charity online and tell their friends about its work tend to give modest amounts, she says, “you have to nurture these relationships just as you would for someone giving five figures.”

Innovations in technology, she adds, allow charities to engage in online conversations with donors much more easily and cheaply than the effort required to visit those individuals in person or send them letters.

Give donors control. To take full advantage of online tools that enable donors to raise money from their friends and family members, charities need to let donors speak for a cause and explain why they care about it, using their own words, experts say. If they don’t, the solicitations will come across as canned or insincere.

“It has to be really authentic and grass roots. Your most effective advocates are people who are passionate,” says Ben Rattray, founder of Change.org, a new social-networking site where people share charitable interests, organize gatherings and other events, and write online reviews of nonprofit groups.

The charity Comic Relief, in London, posts fund-raising ideas on its Web site, but it also encourages donors to devise their own ideas to raise money for Red Nose Day. The charity’s event, held every two years, raises more than $125-million in a single day. “We throw the creative to the public, whatever they want to do to raise money is fine with us,” says Martin Gill, Comic Relief’s head of new media.

Monitor donors’ messages. While giving people the freedom to support a cause in their own way, experts advise charities to be aware of what people are doing to raise money in their behalf, especially if material created by donors appears on the charity’s Web site or other online venues that it controls. That way, offensive or inappropriate content can be removed quickly.

After Hurricane Katrina, Habitat for Humanity used a software program that enabled donors to build their own fund-raising page on the charity’s Web site. After adding their own messages and photographs, donors could send an e-mail message with a link to their page to other people, asking friends and relatives to make a secure online donation there to support Habitat’s relief work on the Gulf Coast.

Some people created pages that promoted their own products and promised that a portion of the proceeds would go to Habitat, says Tim Daugherty, the charity’s senior director of direct marketing.

“When we saw this, we would shut their page down, because we’d never know whether any proceeds would actually get to the cause,” he says. “People can go on our site and do some crazy things.”

Mix online and offline communications. Because many donors are still not familiar with some online tools, experts say it is sometimes useful to promote their online offerings with traditional communication methods such as postcards. Central Dallas Ministries used that approach after adding videos featuring people it had assisted, such as a third-grade girl named Kashia, to its Web site. After the charity mailed inexpensive postcards to donors to alert them that the videos were online, many of the recipients helped recruit new supporters by e-mailing links to the videos to church groups around the country.

“I get three or four churches per week calling and saying that for their summer trip they want to come to Dallas and work in the inner city with people like Kashia,” says Jeremy Gregg, director of development.

Keep it simple. The United Nations Foundation’s “Nothing But Nets” campaign, which has raised more than $4.2-million in 10 months, appeals to donors by enabling them to help solve a big problem easily, with a low-cost, common-sense solution: For every $10 that donors give online, the charity buys a mosquito net that helps an African family prevent malaria, a life-threatening disease; the $10 includes the cost of shipping each net to Africa.

“They had a really simple ask, no waste involved, and there is a low price of entry,” says Jason Mogus, who became a “Netraiser” for the campaign by recruiting friends, colleagues, and relatives who collectively donated more than $4,000. “There is nothing to criticize,” he adds, “no reason you could be against this campaign.”