#BeMoreDigital Fundraising Day 2021: recap of events

Contrary to recent lore, digital fundraising very much existed pre-COVID-19. Back in 2019, one-off online donation had risen by 26% in volume – and that’s before a pandemic gave us few other options.

 

COVID-19 accelerated matters. With in-person fundraising all but impossible, our events cancelled, and our volunteers locked down, we turned instead to our online networks.

 

What happened next was 18 months of trial and error as charities learnt on the job how to engage supporters remotely and keep those funds rolling in, even at the most challenging of times.

 

The Charity Digital Skills report found that charities cited fundraising skills as the third biggest challenge they faced during the pandemic, with 32% claiming to have limited skills in this area.

 

This is what our annual #BeMoreDigital Fundraising Day was all about – sharing valuable lessons and learning new skills when it comes to earning the support of your online audiences.

 

The 2021 event featured information on how to run hybrid fundraising events, how to use data to build meaningful connections with your supporters, and the best technology to use for different types of digital fundraising – and so much more.

 

Below we recap some of the key findings of the day. For more detail, and to catch with certain events from the day in full, check out the #BeMoreDigital Fundraising Day 2021 page here.

 

 

Fundraising fundamentals

 

In the first session, Emily Casson, Digital Marketing and Fundraising Manager at Salvation Army, took us through the fundamental aspects of fundraising online.

 

Aimed at charities at the beginning of their digital journey, Emily started us off by giving us a map. She explained that charities should start by working out overall goals and identifying digital principles.

 

An internal skills audit can provide organisations with a natural starting point, allowing them to see what they can do and what potentially lies beyond their reach.

 

Putting a call out to supporters and volunteers can be just as fruitful as looking for skills internally too and can foster further engagement between you and your audiences.

 

Remember, every charity is on a different journey and building confidence is part of the process. Emily advised starting with three simple questions: Where are you now with digital income? Where are your audience? What are the easy wins?

 

Though it is important to think big, it’s best to start small. It may feel daunting, but even the smallest steps will get you there eventually. And when you get digital right, it will have a big impact on income.

 

 

The tech you need to keep supporters engaged

 

Hannah Siddle, Challenge Events Officer at SSAFA, and Alice Young, Customer Support Manager at Enthuse, talked us through everything we need to know about running hybrid events.

 

After the events of 2020 – or lack thereof – Hannah was one of many events officers grappling with fundraising in a socially-distanced world. SSAFA had concerns with fundraising in general, not knowing how they could ask people to support them when they may be struggling themselves.

 

But fortunately, every Zoom quiz of 2020, every virtual marathon, every musical bingo night was testament to the appetite that clearly remained for fundraising events, even in lockdown.

 

SSAFA’s 13 Bridges Challenge – in which fundraisers walk ten miles across every bridge in London – may have been cancelled in its usual format, but it could still be held virtually. Walkers were encouraged to complete the ten miles near their home, with the hopes that the event would return to normal in 2021.

 

Well, not quite, as it happened. In 2021, with restrictions on gatherings lifted, the walk went ahead in person – and on bridges – but SSAFA made sure they brought their virtual audience with them, too.

 

The event went hybrid. The hybrid approach allowed SSAFA to be flexible and also helped accommodate supporters who still felt hesitant about walking in big groups or travelling to London.

 

Enthuse helped fundraisers connect with each other and created an atmosphere of friendly competition. Participants could link their Strava to their fundraising pages to drive a sense of togetherness, while SSAFA could create an effective email campaign to get people engaged, sending videos and content to remind participants of what they were funding.

 

The hybrid approach turned out to be a huge success. SSAFA’s supporters raised more than £75,000 for the charity through the challenge, massively exceeding the organisation’s expectations.

 

 

How to afford fundraising

 

Philip Spedding, Senior Manager for Advisory at Charities Aid Foundation, outlined how charities could seek investment in new digital fundraising techniques.

 

Philip explained, in detail, the basics of putting a bid together for trusts and grants and how to build a relationship with high net-worth individuals looking to donate to a charity. He warned that the more charities request investment in digital strategy, the more investors will become savvy as to what a good one looks like.

 

There are three key types of audience that can invest in your organisation: individuals, trusts and foundations, and corporates. Each comes with its own set of rules for engaging, but Philip gave two that are hard and fast:

• Ask the right person at the right time, for the right amount of money, for the right project
• It’s not about you, it’s about them – address the concerns of the funder you are writing to and think about the language you are using

Fundraising doesn’t need to be difficult, but it does take time and it does take research. Charities should ask themselves who is closest to them. They should ask who is on their doorstep and in their community. That deeper relationship is what will encourage potential donors to return.

 

 

The best donation tech to use for fundraising campaigns

 

Brad French, Fundraising Innovation Manager at Donr, explored the different digital fundraising technology that charities can use, depending on different goals. Brad shared insight from charities using a variety of techniques to fundraise online, from text-to-donate to text raffles.

 

Donors want convenience, Brad explained. People are preferring to pay with contactless or via apps, so considering all the different donation journeys is crucial. QR codes may be a great fundraising bucket replacement, for example, but they won’t work in an email as well as a payment link would.

 

Text-to-donate is a great method of fundraising for small, one-off donations. It is quick, easy, and can be quickly integrated with other fundraising techniques on social media and advertising.

 

Brad used the example of Edinburgh Cats and Dogs Home. The charity used text-to-donate to secure their future after they found themselves in a desperate situation during the pandemic. Their Help Our Home campaign made text-to-donate simple and effective, giving donors an easy method.

 

In the end, the charity raised £175,000 in five weeks – £50,000 of that came through text-to-donate, and bounceback texts ushered 30 new regular supporters through there, too.

 

Education charity COCO used text-to-donate features to hold a text raffle. Trying to make a COVID-19-safe raffle is not a fundraising challenge anyone could have foreseen in March 2020, but it can be difficult due to gambling laws and logistics.

 

With text raffles, supporters can purchase a ticket for free but will receive a follow up text asking them to donate what they can, meaning the system is both compliant and COVID-safe – a win-win in anyone’s book.

 

 

Using data to build meaningful donor connections

 

Alan Perestrello, co-founder of digital consultancy Trillium, shared a helpful guide for charities looking to personalise their communications with donors.

 

Charities are home to a lot of important data from their donors, both explicit (what donors give themselves) and implicit (general donor behaviour). Using data, Alan explained, a charity’s interactions with supporters could be more personal, relevant, timely, and targeted.

 

To build a clear understanding of your different audences, Alan advised starting with the explicit data and moving to implicit over time, and implementing engagement scoring. To gauge the engagement score, charities should:

• Keep record of each engagement
• Score them by type
• Add up the actions to give your supporter score

This score is a guide of the relationship you have with each supporter. It informs the way your organisation tailors its approach to maximise engagement and helps identify supporters who might appreciate or respond to a different approach.

 

Understanding the behaviour of your supporters – and measuring it – will help charities improve the score in the future. If you can’t measure something, how do you know it’s working?

 

 

Masterclass in using Facebook to raise more funds

 

This interactive workshop was presented by Jill O’Herlihy and Simon Varley from Facebook fundraising platform GivePanel, and Caitlin Graham from Pancreatic Cancer UK.

 

The workshop offered a guide for charities to help them create, launch, and scale Facebook fundraising events. More than $5 billion has been raised for charities through Facebook and Instagram since 2016 and the money keeps on rolling in.

 

In 2020 alone, $678,000 was raised through the increase in virtual challenges amid COVID-19 restrictions, a prime opportunity for charities to test out Facebook fundraising capabilities.

 

Caitlin from Pancreatic Cancer UK offered some important lessons from her experience of running challenge events on Facebook. First, when charities are making the decision about what the challenge should be, make it simple.

 

Getting the same people doing it over the same period of time allows you to build a community and gives you a clear timeline of when to send your marketing out.

 

Second, think about accessibility. Do your supporters have time to dedicate to your challenge? What difficulty level are you aiming for? Is it competitive or casual? Make sure to communicate expectations to your audience from the beginning.

 

Finally, think about what you are going to do once the challenge is over. How are you going to look after and thank your supporters? GivePanel allows for automated emails to support with this and can help you keep supporters engaged so they come back for more later down the line.

 

 

Thank you from Charity Digital

 

Thanks to all who attended our #BeMoreDigital Fundraising Day. We hope you learned lots and can apply your learnings to improve your digital strategy in the future.

 

As mentioned, Charity Digital will release recording of some of the above sessions, so keep up-to-date with our websites or subscribe to our emails for more information.