Good digital fundraising puts people first

Digital technologies have proven pivotal in reaching and retaining donors. Since 2020, we’ve seen the shift towards online events, social media campaigns and contactless technologies accelerate as they became a lifeline to charities during lockdown. Moving forward, digital transformation will only become more important, CAF’s UK giving report 2021 found that not only has cash giving remained low, but younger generations tend to donate through digital channels.

But cost, capacity and culture are still holding many organisations back from reaping the full benefits digital technologies have to offer. To help fundraisers tackle this, we hosted a roundtable with the Law Family Commission on Civil Society to hear from charities, both large and small, alongside digital experts and consultancies. It was great to hear so many different perspectives and there was some valuable advice for fundraisers.

Charities shouldn’t feel pressured to do everything all at once, instead, innovation needs to be tailored to the needs of staff and donors. What might work for some charities’ donors, like hybrid events, might not be as appealing to a different charities’ donors. 

Equally, embedding a new technology, such as online donations, requires time and resources, which means in some cases charities will be better off waiting for others to work out the kinks before adopting it themselves. This means that as the sector becomes more digitally mature, some charities will be early adopters to experiment with new technologies, whilst others will benefit from being late adopters, and in some cases, a certain technology may never be right for a charity and their supporters. 

There are many ways technology can make giving more accessible and enjoyable. Some of our attendees, who were already exploring how online and contactless payments could achieve this pre-pandemic, highlighted that a good supporter experience was the key to successfully introducing a new technology into fundraising. There are several factors that can affect this, including if supporters understand the technology, if they want to use it, if fundraisers are clearly communicating how to use it and if the overall experience met supporters’ expectations.   

Making this happen isn’t easy requires the right infrastructure, resource, and capacity. Attendees pointed out that most organisations- both large and small- have been struggled to get technologies to talk to each other and often ‘getting the basics right’- updating landing pages, thanking supporters- wasn’t straightforward.

Winning buy-in or investment for something new usually means understanding and managing an appetite for risk. It’s important to remember that having concerns and questions about trying something new is normal and a low appetite for risk is not necessarily a bad thing, fundraisers just need to use their (already exceptional) communication skills to bring others on the journey with them.

It’s often safer to start small and champion good results across the organisation. This helps colleagues see the benefit and understand the opportunity digital brings whilst minimising the risk of investment. That said, the digital space is evolving quickly and sometimes fundraisers might want to try something completely new. This means looking to other charities or sometimes the commercial sector to find evidence to present to senior leadership, either through case studies or benchmarking data.

There is still a lot of work to be done in this area but our research roundup brings together research on all kinds of giving and could be a good starting point. 

Whilst any case for investment into fundraising should center around the financial benefit to the charity, limiting a project’s success to only ROI can stop charities from getting the most out of digital technologies. It’s true that ROI is an important tool, however there are other (sometimes more valuable) ways to see if a project has achieved its objectives, such as supporters’ feedback.

Similarly, sometimes unexpected results don’t mean a project has failed or should be abandoned, particularly as ROI can sometimes take time to achieve. Instead, patience or adapting a project could lead to bigger returns later.

Fully understanding and getting the most from digital technologies will require a shift in culture at all levels of an organisation. This won’t happen overnight, however, improving digital skills and confidence will help. Fundraisers need to consider how much their trustees, senior leadership and colleagues know about digital and help fill any gaps.

There are different ways to go about this, depending on the charity and current culture. Our attendees suggested some great ideas, including improving senior leaderships’ understanding of digital through reverse mentoring or digital training courses. Elsewhere in the organisation, digital teams could collaborate with HR to upskill other teams.

There is no roadmap for digital transformation and every charities will have to decide what approach works best for them. Whilst there is no perfect way to do this, making sure everyone is joined up will make a huge difference, you could therefore consider:

• Thinking about donors- how can you use active insight (such as surveys) and passive insight (such as feedback on social media) to understand their expectations’ around technology?
• Talking to colleagues (not only fundraisers but also finance, compliance and supporter services)- what does digital transformation mean for them and how can you collectively make it work for your charity?
• Finding out what your senior leaderships’ appetite for digital is and how this will impact your case for investment?
• Signing up to the Law Family Commission Newsletter to hear about future events and opportunities to feed in to how digital transformation can support civil society.