How a user-centric model can make up a fundraising shortfall

This article is sponsored by Amazon Web Services (AWS), a provider of reliable, scalable and flexible cloud computing services.

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Over the past few months, digital leadership has emerged as one of the key themes of discussion within the UK charity sector - as non-profits find ways to mitigate the fundraising shortfall caused by COVID-19.

 

With a complete freeze on the in-person fundraising events that many organisations have historically relied on, charities are re-thinking their engagement and delivery models in order to operate virtually.

 

The transition from in-person to virtual fundraising has been the difference between the success or failure for charities hit by COVID’s disruptive influence on traditional donor engagement models. Innovation has led the way, as charities explore new methods of mobilising supporters.

Finding ways to diversify income demands a greater focus on the donor. For some organisations, the siren call of flashy new tech and bespoke platforms can be too appealing to resist. But without a thorough understanding of your donors, and the channels they prefer to use, these projects will most likely be destined to fail. One of the key components of successful digital fundraising campaigns is a user-centric approach.

 

Through the use of data and digital experiences, charities can build profiles (or ‘personas’) of their supporters. The more detailed your understanding of who your donors are and what they want, the more effective your personas will be.

 

The idea is to arrive at a bespoke digital fundraising strategy. Just as there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ method for rolling out digital fundraising, there is no out of the box solution for planning either. Adopting a process that works backwards from your supporters helps you better understand their needs. This will allow you to build solutions that are geared towards the fundraising challenges your organisation actually faces.

 

In this article, we examine the “working backwards” process and explore how charities are successfully adapting to digital fundraising design models in order to make better use of their data assets and sustain their missions.

 

 

What is the ‘working backwards’ model?

 

The concept is a simple one. In a charity environment, all key decisions will be driven by a simple question: what will give us the best opportunity to deliver on our mission?

 

For organisations that deal directly with service users, beneficiaries or stakeholders, this will mean that any decisions around operations should be made with the aim of delivering services as efficiently as possible.

 

Some key questions to consider might be:

 

• Will this allow us to deliver services more effectively?
• Will this reduce the cost of delivering services?
• Will this allow us to reach more people?
• Will this enable us to connect with existing supporters more effectively?

 

The process of working backwards begins by identifying the needs and wants of service users and supporters. Any decisions around tools, services and solutions should be made by identifying the challenges your users face, and assessing whether the new technology or process will help to overcome these challenges.

Many charities will have had the process of digitising operations thrust upon them by the COVID-19 pandemic. These organisations will still be at a relatively early stage of their digital journey.

 

Now that the foundations have been laid, these charities must begin planning for the optimisation stage of their digital evolution. Placing users at the heart of this design will offer organisations the best possible chance of success.

 

This experience has been easier for some organisations than others. For example, charities working with service users at a higher risk of digital exclusion – such as elderly or homeless people – have been under greater pressure to come up with technology-led workarounds to delivery challenges.