Where have all the donors gone?

I know it sounds like a pop song from the 60's. But seriously, how true is it that donor files are decreasing in size steadily, and what does it mean for our industry?

Studies have shown that, while overall donations to charity have increased slightly in each of the past few years, it has been the result of slightly fewer donors giving slightly higher average gifts. Until this year, in the economic meltdown, when those slightly fewer donors started giving slightly less.

We're looking for insightful comments on this, as well as profound thoughts on what we, as an industry, can do about it. Are traditional low-level direct mail donors just dying faster than their children are taking their places? Are they being turned off? Or are bigger nonprofits making the mistake of "mailing smarter" and cutting back on the kind of acquisition and reactivation that loses money in the short run but increases long-term donor files and revenue?

Please add your comments here, or see Rick Christ at next week's DMAW/AFP Bridge Conference in DC and give him a piece of your mind there.

Rick...

How to Make Twitter Useful

While Twitter use is still very low among most nonprofits' desired demographics (5% of those 45-54 years old tweet, and fewer of folks older than that), its popularity among the media is sure to make those numbers grow, especially among those who are highly wired.

Maybe no one is following you right now, but if you start posting tweets on topics where your nonprofit is the expert, then clever use of hashtags will propel your messages around the twitterverse. For example, I'm following #swineflu and so I'll see lots of tweets about swine flu that have that hashtag, even if I'm not following the users who posted those messages.

This is a great way to reach the mavens on the issues you cover.

For more on hastags, see the Twitter Fan Wiki

Rick...

Web users have varied interests in online news

One of the best ways to create a surge in web traffic is to get some great press coverage. How big? One of our clients captured 50% of its 2006 online donations in June -- most of that within 24 hours after its spokesperson appeared on CNN's Anderson Cooper for an hour. We're talking over $350,000.

Some good news has just been published by Pew's Center for Excellence in Journalism. They compared the top news stories offered by "mainstream" news outlets to the most popular stories in user-driven news sites, like Reddit, Digg, Deli.cio.us, and Yahoo! They found very little overlap.

In addition, they found that the top stories on user-driven sites tended to be much more varied and much more transient. This means that nonprofits have a greater opportunity to get their stories "published" in these user-driven sites. But, the decision to make these stories popular does not lie with editors. Instead, users drive the rankings. In other words, your communications department can stop schmoozing the editors, and instead publish press releases that are hip, relevant, unique and easy to read.

Whether this is good news or bad news for your nonprofit depends on which of those skills your communications department practices.

Read the report highlights here.

Fred08 - great site, too bad it doesn't work

I expected more from the Fred Thompson campaign than the others. This guy, who recorded a great YouTube rebuttal to Michael Moore, seemed like the "hippest dude" among the Republican candidates (I know that's not saying much...).

So I went to his new site tonite, after the big announcement, and was surprised and thrilled to see the home page taken up by a bold request to "join" and asking for first and last name, email address and zip. I signed up, and then was directed to a page requiring a street address and a password. It also invited me to enter my cell phone and IM information, but hey, we're not that committed to the campaign.

So imagine my frustration when I got this error message:

Your friend account was not created. Please try again.

So I did try again. And again. and again. Same message. What was I doing wrong? Often it's a password problem (too short, needs a number or alpha character) but here, no explanation. Nada. Insert another quarter and try again.

I even tried it in MSIE instead of my native FireFox, thinking maybe they weren't that hip after all. No dice there either.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

Conservation while I travel?

Shortly after booking a hotel room through Travelocity, I received an email with "some goodies for your upcoming trip" according to the message. There was an ad from Blockbuster Video, but the one that caught my eye read, "Offset Your Trip's Carbon Emissions -- Effectively offset the negative environmental impact of your entire trip here. Go without guilt - Go Zero!" and linked me to a travelocity page that described how, for a small donation to The Conservation Fund, I could wipe out the damage my travel was going to do to the earth. The landing page assures me:

"A contribution of:

• $10 offsets an average trip including air travel, a one-night hotel stay, and rental car for one person
• $25 negates air travel, four-night hotel stay, and rental car for two people
• $40 equalizes the effects of air travel, four-night hotel stay, and rental car for four people"

This reminds be a bit of 16th Century indulgences offered by the Roman Catholic Church, but nevertheless, what I love about this is the clever tie-in of the offer with travel confirmations. I'd love to see travel confirmations for trips to developing nations tied to appeals from international development agencies. Perhaps it would be even more successful if it were tied to the email Travelocity sends after such a trip.

If you know how this offer is working, or know of any similar offers, please let us know.