“Affluent people are increasingly likely to use the Internet to make their charitable donations, according to results released today of a study of nearly 3,500 donors.
But charities are turning off some of their biggest donors — people who give $1,000 or more, the survey found. Some charities send too many messages to donors who say they don’t want them, while others don’t take take advantage of the interest many donors express in expanding their online interaction with nonprofit organizations, the survey found.
‘Most charities are not paying attention,’ says Mark Rovner, president of Sea Change Strategies, a fund-raising consulting company in Takoma Park, Md. ‘The people responsible for larger gifts need to start taking the Internet much more seriously than they have.’
Here are some important points from a recent survey by Sea Change Fundraising Consultants in conjunction with Convio…
– Four out of five donors said they had made a charitable gift online, and a little more than half, 51 percent, said they prefer to use the Internet for their donations.
– 46 percent said that they expect to make a greater percentage of their charitable gifts online within the next five years.
- Ninety-two percent of donors like getting year-end tax receipts by e-mail, while 83 percent want to get electronic updates on a charity’s finances and spending.
– Seventy-four percent said e-mail messages are appropriate when notifying donors that it’s time to renew an annual gift or to explain how a donation has been spent.
-Â Eighty-one percent of donors dislike messages that take an urgent tone in seeking a repeat donation.
- Forty-six percent of donors said the charity’s messages do a good job of making them feel connected to the organization, while 43 percent said the messages are well-written and inspiring.
The survey was based on data from 3,443 donors who had made gifts of at least $1,000 to a single cause in the past 18 months and donated an average of more than $10,896 per year to charities.
Read the full article by Elizabeth Schwinn from the Chronical of Philanthropy here.
Yoav