Attended Media140's event today, which featured a number of panels and guest speakers on social media.
It was an interesting event and as well as seeing a few old faces, it was good to chat to new people and to hear what they're doing with social media in their own organisations.
Below are some quickly typed thoughts and observations from each of the sessions.
Keynote 1: 'Staying relevant in a wired world' by Steve Bridger
I've had a few conversations with Steve on Twitter, so it was nice to see and hear him in the flesh (although I had to dash before getting a chance to say hello!) and I was impressed with what he had to say.
His talk was a personal plea for charities not to make social media a silo and that 'legitimate voices' were a bad idea.
He said we should encourage workers to become better storytellers and professional conversationalists about their cause and to trust them to do it properly.
I particularly found this slide about the changing giving environment useful:
Panel 1: Finding a voice - maintaining personality cross platform, across different campaigns.The panel relayed how they used social media in their own organisations and the importance of engaging in conversation and not just 'shouting' your messages at people.
Simon Collister of We are Social got a bit of a backlash on Twitter when he suggested that charities outsource their social media. Personally I think the actual Tweets/messages/engagement should be by a charity staff member or volunteer, but I don't have a problem with an agency providing training, advice, strategy etc. As Rob Dyson of WhizzKidz pointed out we don't kick up the same sort of fuss when charities outsource things like face to face or telephone fundraising.
The other quote that I liked from the panel was: 'People are multi-faceted, you only find out their depth and diversity when you engage with them.'
Keynote 2: Building a community from nothing by John Carnell of Bullying UK
I've heard a lot about Bullying UK and social media, but hadn't heard John speak before. I thought he did an excellent job.
He made a number of pertinent points, as well as sharing some great stats on how Bullying UK engage with people. You can see his presentation on Slideshare.
He encouraged people to put their message across as a person and not as a brand as that builds the best connections.
Share, share and share content, be honest, be open and people will love you.
He predicted that the mobile web is untapped. He's getting in early as he think it is about to explode and that this explosion will be driven by the social web.
Panel 2: The future of fundraising with 'real-time' social media?
Some of the ideas and trends that the panel discussed were:
- The increasing need for NGO's to collaborate to raise fund. No NGO is unique - even if they think they are.
- The importance of storytelling and fitting your ask around this.
- Making things relevant at the point of sale and the increase of micro-donations.
- Mobile barcodes (QR-codes) becoming increasingly popular and will give fundraisers new opportunities to capture data and raise funds.
Panel 3: How to enthuse and co-ordinate volunteers
Jamie Thomas of iVolunteer gave an impassioned defence of slacktivism and said it was better that people did something than do nothing. He said this micro-volunteering (such as signing an online petition) often led to further involvement and engagement in the future.
The panel also thought that volunteering was lagging behind other functions of charities (such as fundraising) in their adoption of social media to manage and involve volunteers. Someone quoted a study that found that less than 20% of small, local charities had any social media presence.
Demo: Media140 Labs
The final part of the day was a presentation from Liam of Louder.org, which is an online tool to help charities campaign better (well worth checking out if you are a campaigning charity) and from iVolunteer, a Facebook style community for volunteers and volunteer managers. One of the interesting things about this is that they are producing a white label version for large charities to use for their own staff and volunteers.
More information:
Itchynotscratchy's thoughtsThe Flickr pool from the day - including this one of me not being able to keep my mouth shut!
The organisers: Media140
What Copernicus and Car Advertising has to do with Fundraising (and other revelations!)
I recently had the pleasure of reading Beth Breeze’s research paper on 'How Donors choose charities'.
I decided to send Beth some follow up questions on the research and she has kindly agreed to share her answers.
One of the key findings of the research was for charities to clearly demonstrate that they are ‘in need’.
Do you have any thoughts on how charities can better portray this in their communications and messages?
I think I'd rather that charities were more honest about where need does and doesn't exist, and cease trying to inject a sense of urgency and 'neediness' into their appeals when it doesn't exist.
Not only would that be more honest (for example, do we 'need' another new orchestra or would it just be really nice?), but the evidence is that donors are more likely to respond to how a cause 'clicks' with their personal experience.
The example I used in an article I wrote for Third Sector magazine, is to float the idea that heritage charities could say:
'Do you like trooping round stately homes, having a nice cream tea and browsing the gift shop? Then join us!'
rather than
'We urgently need you to save the fabric of the nation'
I think donors know the difference between meeting needs and pursuing their own tastes, and might appreciate a more honestly framed request.
I noticed that there was decidedly more males than females in the survey. Are you worried about any gender biases?
Also, without being sexist, would it be fair to assume that you spoke to the gent (as the CAF account was in their name for gift aid purposes), but their wife also has an impact on the decision making?
The main concern in my sampling was to reach committed, proactive givers, as opposed to those who describe themselves as donors but in reality just reactively chuck the odd coin in a tin.
This is why I approached CAF account holders, but the down side is they tend to be older, male, live in the South etc - though if these are the backbone of charity funders then they are the right people to speak to!
You're quite right that the named account holder may not be the sole decision maker, and often the wife did chip in in the background, which was endearing and funny to listen to "No dear, we gave up the donkeys years ago"!!
Am I being too harsh in the conclusion that the findings from your study shows that comparison sites, like Intelligent Giving, (which I’m a big fan of), will never greatly influence giving?
That is my current conclusion I'm afraid, much as I can see the logic in providing good information to donors, there just doesn't seem to be the appetite to actually read it or act on it. But I'm open to changing my mind if new evidence emerges, e.g. it may be that people making bigger donations are more likely to do the research. Although recent research from Hope Consulting in the U.S.A. finds this isn't the case.
How do you cut through the marketing clutter? How can you use heuristics/binary distinctions/satisficing etc in your own favour? How can fundraisers get a better understanding of them?
Empathising with donors and understanding that the process by which they make decisions is not only (or even largely) about the charity, but about themselves - their own needs, personal experiences, tastes etc. I wrote about this in a think piece for the NCVO Funding Commission, in which I argue:
“By 2020 the relationship between donors and charities needs to be turned on its head so that givers become the centre of the charity universe.
"As Paul Schervish has suggested, the accepted wisdom that charities need donors in order to help them achieve their organisational mission, ought to be replaced by an understanding that donors choose to support charities in order to achieve their personal missions.
"The nature of this transformation has been compared by Canadian philanthropist Charles Bronfman, to Copernicus’ revelation that displaced the earth from the centre of the universe.
"In this analogy, the donor, not the charity, is the sun around which all else must revolve. This donor-centred universe will be a far cry from the current widely-held attitude that the people with the cash are a necessary evil who must be recruited at minimum expense and kept happy with minimum fuss so they are ready for maximum tapping when required.
"Once the charity sector’s version of the Copernican revolution takes place, the implications will affect all aspects of the fundraising profession.”
Does social media offer opportunities to harness supporters networks to raise money?
Yes, and the reason this works is because people are swayed by being asked by people they know, and by seeing how much others give.
The genius of JustGiving-type sites is the sharing of this information, which prompts others to think "If he gave £x, I'd better give at least £y.
Are you worried that what people say and what they do are different things?
Does the fact that people say they don’t like glossy appeals/flashy communications/free gifts etc, but the reason fundraisers use them is because they work and increase response concern you? The largest and most successful fundraising charities generally have the glossiest comms.
You're right, people are deeply inconsistent and contradictory in this regard. I constantly meet people who berate fundraiser's methods and yet respond to them!
I don't know what the answer to this is - do we carry on pissing people off because it works, or do we change tactics and make people feel more fondly of charities but potentially reduce income?
My interim answer is the former - commercial companies don't worry about annoying customers (think of how irritating many of their ad campaigns are), so long as it boosts their bottom line, and I think charities might have to settle for being less loved but better funded.
On page 37 of the research, you talk about some donors preference for small, local charities. How can small charities tap into the apparent bias towards them?
Small charities should shout about the fact they are small, non-bureaucratic, have a personal touch, rely on volunteers, work hard to keep overheads low etc etc - donors who prefer to support the big boys won't want to support the tiddlers no matter what they say, but those who feel their money is better spent by smaller organisations will respond to these kind of messages.
If donors are so entrenched in their giving choices, then how can charities attract new donors?
As people like Adrian Sargeant have long argued, we should be prioritising the retention of existing donors rather than recruiting new ones.
I once read that most advertising by car companies is aimed at reassuring people who have already bought one of their cars, rather than trying to tempt people to switch from Volvos to Fords.
I think the same is true of cigarette advertising.
My hunch is that charities share something with these sectors, a deep-running customer loyalty that means people will stick with their original decision (be it Volvos, Marlboros or the RNLI) until they're given a reason to leave - so focusing on not pissing off donors is a better investment than trying to win new ones.
Thanks for your time Beth and for providing further insight into how donors choose charities.
Posted at 05:04 PM in Fundraising Comment, General Fundraising | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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