May 2, 2011 | Read Time: 3 minutes
While many charities struggled to connect with donors in 2010 due to the sluggish economy, online giving grew for some groups, according to a new Chronicle survey.
The survey found that 137 of the nation’s largest charities raised $808-million online in 2010 ($942-million counting donations made in response to the Haiti earthquake), compared to $523.1-million raised by the same groups in 2009.
How are these groups making such strong gains, especially during a tough time for fund raising overall?
Below is a look at four groups that have built successful online fund-raising efforts:
Texas Children’s Hospital
Texas Children’s Hospital was one of many organizations that found success by using online tools to help supporters play host to fund-raising events on its behalf.
The hospital recently created a feature on its Web site that allowed supporters to set up registration pages for fund-raising events. In the past, the hospital would have devoted considerable time helping supporters organize such events. But the online registration system has made the process “much less labor-intensive.”
The hospital also experimented with a new membership program in which users could donate money to become designated as “ambassadors” to the hospital and gain access to private events. As part of this program, the hospital set up a Web page that displays the names of current ambassadors.
The ambassador program raised $158,000 online for the hospital in 2010.
These efforts helped the hospital increase its online fund-raising total from $427,264 in 2009 to $724,887 in 2010. It even received one gift of $100,000.
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy has been boosting its online fund-raising efforts, in part by creating a more personal online experience for its supporters, such as “My Nature Page,” an online feature that allows visitors to its site to fill in their interests and see targeted stories whenever they log on.
The page also taps into the growing social nature of the Web. For example, it features photos that are submitted by users through the photo-sharing site Flickr.
“Our donors and supporters have less patience than they did before,” says Sue Citro, director of digital membership. “They’re expecting a personalized experience that caters to their experience.
The organization recorded a 24.8-percent increase in online fund raising in 2010, as giving increased from $6,203,987 to $7,743,545 to 2009.
Partners in Health
Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, many international aid organizations recorded a huge increase in their online fund raising.
One such group, Partners in Health, had planned to roll out a new Web site early that year, with a new platform capable of handling larger numbers of donations. When the earthquake struck in January, the organization accelerated its schedule, and the new site was live three days after the disaster.
At the same time, Partners in Health built an auxiliary site, StandWithHaiti.org, exclusively to respond to the Haiti disaster. Christine Hamann, the charity’s outreach coordinator, says the page helped introduce new donors to the organization’s work.
In the first couple of weeks, the sites were updated daily, says Ms. Hamann.
The group’s efforts paid off. Partners in Health reports that it has more than 200,000 online supporters—compared with just 15,000 before the new sites went live.
Over all, Partners in Health’s online fund-raising performance jumped by more than 800 percent, from $2.92-million in 2009 to $28-million in 2010.
Christian Foundation for Children and Aging
The Christian Foundation for Children and Aging, a group that asks donors to sponsor children in need, unveiled a newly redesigned Web site in 2010 to do a better job of connecting with new supporters online.
“Our old site had become more focused on retention, rather than speaking to people who might be visiting for the first time,” says Laney Haake, director of sponsorship operations.
As part of its redesign, links to the foundation’s “About” and “Get Involved” pages were given greater prominence. The foundation also began showing profiles of children and allowing visitors to sponsor individual children.
These subtle changes helped the group increase its online fund-raising results by 15 percent, from $1,772,676 in 2009 to $2,050,311 in 2010.
