Online Giving Study by Network for Good - Relationships and Timing

In my last blog article “Really Simple Year End Fundraising – Make it Good to the Last Drop" one of my suggestions was to send out a short email in the last week of December as a reminder about last minute gifts because New Year’s Eve is the biggest online giving day of the year. That is an important piece of marketing intelligence to have and today's article provides a bunch more marketing intelligence.

Network for Good and True Sense Marketing have just released the findings of a massive online giving study covering $381 million in online giving through Network for Good’s platform, including 3.6 million gifts to 66,470 different nonprofits from 2003-2009. The study has some interesting statistics about online giving. . including that 22% of all online giving through Network for Good takes place in the last two days of the year. That is just incredible.

But there is also information that we can use all year long…… Like online giving by day of the week and time of day.

64% of donors who give online give through a nonprofit’s own website versus through social media such as facebook or other portals such as guidestar. And donors who gave via charity websites started at the highest level and gave the most over time. Having a good website is an essential ingredient for increasing your online giving. If you are considering expanding your presence in social media – your first step should be to get your website in shape.

The major finding of this study is that relationships count online just like they do offline. The study data supports Network for Good’s product of branded giving versus their free generic giving process. The data is overwhelming - The loyalty factor for donors acquired through generic giving pages is 66.7% lower than for donors who give via charity-branded giving pages.

For small charities who are just beginning with online giving I usually recommend that they begin with a generic approach and then once their email list grows and their eNewsletters and website are well coordinated and updated, then they may be ready to switch to the paid branded service such as Network for Good’s branded product.

I suggest you download and read the whole report if you are interested in online giving.