Last week I was at the Nonprofit Strategy
Forum in Brisbane which looked at some of the challenges facing nonprofits (I still prefer the term 'charity') but mostly not from a fundraising point of view. I was on a panel with two others challenging the current paradigm; one encouraging charities to not be scared to borrow money and another looking at how charities should not just look at income but also social capital - having impact beyond monetary things.
The idea was that we were meant to debate and be controversial but we kind of struggled to disagree with each other.
The borrowing money is a fascinating concept. Particularly for fundraising. From a commercial lenders point of view, in the scheme of things to invest in, professional fundraising is generally a pretty safe bet; failures are rare and returns are very good compared to other business ventures.
Many of the big international charities here got their foot into the fundraising market in Australia via a loan from their Paris or Geneva based 'parents', but other than that there are few others willing to borrow.
There are also people from the Myer Family Company, Vision Australia's board chair, the ACNC task force (new charity regulators) and someone from Opportunity International talking about microfinance options.
A great mini conference for CEOs, finance people and board members. Tickets still available, Sydney 12 June and Melbourne 15 June.
Oh - and if you are a subscriber to this blog, quote STPF12 to get a discount. Eg from $330 to $275 (+GST) on a single, small charity ticket. Call 02 9555 4203 and tell them you would like a discount.
More information here.
Sean
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Big Macs and Giving
A bit of fun: Who gives the most?
The Big Mac Index is used by the Economist and others to measure purchasing power of a currency.
Some fundraising friends of mine are building a Global Giving Wiki and they are starting with a Big Mac Index on giving - ie comparing average donations to the price of a Big Mac.
In Australia, looking at average gifts across around 40 charities we can see that the average regular gift is around $28, between six and seven Big Macs. How will that compare to various countries?
The answer will be revealed at the end of the year, when lots of people have filled in the survey - people like you!
(Bizarrely I didn't know, and nor did anyone in the Pareto Sydney office know, how much a Big Mac cost. I had to get the answer out of our Brisbane office).
Please complete it here, it takes about 3 minutes.
Sean
The Big Mac Index is used by the Economist and others to measure purchasing power of a currency.
Some fundraising friends of mine are building a Global Giving Wiki and they are starting with a Big Mac Index on giving - ie comparing average donations to the price of a Big Mac.
The answer will be revealed at the end of the year, when lots of people have filled in the survey - people like you!
(Bizarrely I didn't know, and nor did anyone in the Pareto Sydney office know, how much a Big Mac cost. I had to get the answer out of our Brisbane office).
Please complete it here, it takes about 3 minutes.
Sean
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
How complex is social media?
Think you know all the Social Media providers that are out there? Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc? Could you name just five more?
Business Insider published an image from Buddy Media showing around 300 Social media sites, trackers, URL shorteners and more.
The point of the article is that social media is really confusing, but I disagree. There is no need for charities to be early adopters of social media platforms; most have short lives and disappear. The ones that survive and grow are of most interest to us.
Even then, be cautious: mail, phone and face to face still account for nearly all new donor acquisition. There are donors acquired online of course, but when it comes to digital, old fashioned web advertising (where social media is treated as just another place to buy advertising) and email still accounts for nearly all digitally acquired donors.
Looking at 45 Australian and New Zealand charities we see in the chart below that online solicitation is growing, but is still very small. Please note - this is solicitation; more and more direct mail solicited donors actually use the web to donate, but here we are looking at where the advertising goes, not the inbound channel.
When it comes down to it, social media follows the Pareto Principle; a majority of the useful traffic is going to be through a minority of the social media platforms. In other words, just get Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter right and you don't need to worry about the others. This month.
The infographic with all the social media firms is here.
Business Insider published an image from Buddy Media showing around 300 Social media sites, trackers, URL shorteners and more.
The point of the article is that social media is really confusing, but I disagree. There is no need for charities to be early adopters of social media platforms; most have short lives and disappear. The ones that survive and grow are of most interest to us.
Even then, be cautious: mail, phone and face to face still account for nearly all new donor acquisition. There are donors acquired online of course, but when it comes to digital, old fashioned web advertising (where social media is treated as just another place to buy advertising) and email still accounts for nearly all digitally acquired donors.
Looking at 45 Australian and New Zealand charities we see in the chart below that online solicitation is growing, but is still very small. Please note - this is solicitation; more and more direct mail solicited donors actually use the web to donate, but here we are looking at where the advertising goes, not the inbound channel.
When it comes down to it, social media follows the Pareto Principle; a majority of the useful traffic is going to be through a minority of the social media platforms. In other words, just get Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter right and you don't need to worry about the others. This month.
The infographic with all the social media firms is here.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
A rare case of mainstream media getting cost of fundraising right
Good on the LA times running this story arguing that cost of fundraising or administration is not at all a useful measure when it comes to assessing a charity's' worth.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shakely-charity-rating-kahneman-20120430,0,5220795.story
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shakely-charity-rating-kahneman-20120430,0,5220795.story
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Australians gave more to charity in 2011 than ever before
The latest Pareto Benchmarking figures - derived from looking at actual transactions across 45 charities in Australia and New Zealand - revealed that Australians gave more money to charity in 2011 than ever before. Double checking annual reports of the largest fundraising organisations not in benchmarking confirms it was a good year.
Regular giving (automatic debits) has grown enormously over the past ten years. In fact, for professional fundraising organisations such as Cancer Council NSW and WWF regular giving accounts for more income than 'one-off' donations.
As you can see from the chart above, across the group, around a third of individual gifts came from bequests, a third from regular giving and a third from occasional donations such as those sent in response to direct mail.
Direct mail had been pretty flat over the last few years, but has begun a new resurgence in growth as new creative approaches lift response rates from around 1% to over 4% for many charities. This is from sending letters to people who had not previously donated to the charity.
We expect this growth to accelerate as more and more charities have recently succeeded with their early tests. However, it can take a long time for them to accelerate their programs so the growth will most likely be reflected in 2013 data (to be presented in 2014).
Face to face (people on the street and knocking door to door and asking for monthly pledges) goes from strength to strength, with these 45 charities acquiring more donors through face to face last year than any previous. The only thing holding back further growth in this area is capacity from the face to face providers - they are mostly full up.
But it is not all rosy on the face to face front - one charity in the group lost 60% of its new face to face donors within one year. The average is around 45% but the best manages to keep most of its donors, with only 36% attrition.
Australian and New Zealand charities can join Pareto Benchmarking for free - email bm@paretofundraising.com.
Sean
Regular giving (automatic debits) has grown enormously over the past ten years. In fact, for professional fundraising organisations such as Cancer Council NSW and WWF regular giving accounts for more income than 'one-off' donations.
As you can see from the chart above, across the group, around a third of individual gifts came from bequests, a third from regular giving and a third from occasional donations such as those sent in response to direct mail.
Direct mail had been pretty flat over the last few years, but has begun a new resurgence in growth as new creative approaches lift response rates from around 1% to over 4% for many charities. This is from sending letters to people who had not previously donated to the charity.
We expect this growth to accelerate as more and more charities have recently succeeded with their early tests. However, it can take a long time for them to accelerate their programs so the growth will most likely be reflected in 2013 data (to be presented in 2014).
Face to face (people on the street and knocking door to door and asking for monthly pledges) goes from strength to strength, with these 45 charities acquiring more donors through face to face last year than any previous. The only thing holding back further growth in this area is capacity from the face to face providers - they are mostly full up.
But it is not all rosy on the face to face front - one charity in the group lost 60% of its new face to face donors within one year. The average is around 45% but the best manages to keep most of its donors, with only 36% attrition.
Australian and New Zealand charities can join Pareto Benchmarking for free - email bm@paretofundraising.com.
Sean
Thursday, April 19, 2012
The funniest ad campaign analysis since Stupid Non Profit Ads
"Advertising campaign reaches Mrs. Betty Turner, 93, and 17,678 people who don’t care..."
An agency spokesperson said she hopes "the 17,000 people who saw the ads and really don’t care about the Foundation will change their minds when they begin a new series of ads costing tens of thousands more in a few weeks.". See full article here.
Thanks to Jeff Brooks for this lead...He is the master of knocking waste of money (and time) advertising campaigns. You may recall his 'Stupid non profit ads'.
If you dont already I suggest you Subscribe to Jeff's Future Fundraising Now.
An agency spokesperson said she hopes "the 17,000 people who saw the ads and really don’t care about the Foundation will change their minds when they begin a new series of ads costing tens of thousands more in a few weeks.". See full article here.
Thanks to Jeff Brooks for this lead...He is the master of knocking waste of money (and time) advertising campaigns. You may recall his 'Stupid non profit ads'.
If you dont already I suggest you Subscribe to Jeff's Future Fundraising Now.
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