Online Fundraising Ideas: Organizations And Charity

Online fundraising has been around for a little over ten years now and has proved to be a great asset to charity and non-profit organizations around the world. The tragic events of September 11, 2001 helped to push online fundraising to a new extreme because of the great number of people desiring to help the survivors and victims.  President Bush urged people to donate online, claiming that the Internet was an easy and affordable means to do so. This instantly demonstrated the convenience and speed of the venue; more than $215 million was raised in the aftermath of 9-11.

In his article titled “A Primer on Online Fundraising for Nonprofit Organizations,” Michael Stein throws out a couple of tips for successful online fundraising. The two greatest are the use of charity portals and donor buttons. Charity portals are Web sites that offer a directory of nonprofits. They are web sites that focus on bringing in people interested in donating money and they usually play host for many different charities and non-profit organizations; some better known charity portals include NetworkForGood.org, 4charity.com, and GreaterGood.com. A donor button is included on the organizations personal webpage. It allows the person viewing the page to instantly donate any amount using a credit card. Charity portals often take out a certain percentage for advertising and hosting purposes, but that is bypassed when using a donor button.

Joanne Fritz has published a helpful list of tips for any organization to get started in the world of online fundraising.

• Choose the right software for your particular needs. There are hundreds of different companies offering software and each program offers slightly different perks and levels of need with a wide and varied price range. A major factor to take into consideration when choosing software is how large your organization is and what you expect to accomplish.
  
• Compile a list of donors and volunteers.  Any software on the market will help you manage your list. Use family members, friends, old acquaintances from high school and college, work colleagues, and any other person that you can think of to get started. Also, other organizations and charities that hold similar goals and values as yours might be willing to share their lists.
  
• Make sure you time your correspondence wisely. Timing is everything when asking a person for money. For example, the holiday season might not be a great time to suggest a donation, but after a major headline correlating with your issues would be.
  
• Send multiple emails because one email is just not enough. A person will read it, discard it and forget about it. After reading through a few with different points of the benefit of donating towards your cause, a person will be more likely to donate.
  
• Subject lines are important in catching the attention of the reader. Without one they are likely to throw the email away without reading it. Also, it is important to be concise with your words so reading your email is not too time consuming.
  
• Suggest numerous ways to give, such as, over the phone, through the mail, online with a credit card and even in person. With different option available a person will almost always feel the need to donate something.
  
• Lastly, learn from your experience. What worked last time will undoubtedly work again. Remember the ups and downs and choose a strategy based upon them. Work diligently and you will be rewarded.
  

Fritz, Joanne. Top 10 Tips for Online Fundraising. About. 2006. 12 October 2006. nonprofit.about.com/od/fundraising/tp/onlinefundti ps.htm.

Stein, Michael. A Primer on Online Fundraising for Nonprofit Organizations. Techsoup. 8 September 2000. 12 October 2006. www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/funding/page3112.c fm.

Stein, Michael and John Kenyon. A Decade of Online Fundraising. The Nonprofit Quarterly. Winter 2004. 12 October 2006. www.nonprofitquarterly.org/files/578-204.pdf.