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Putting the Web to Work: Honoring Donor Intent Online
By Rick Christ (This article was orginally published in Advancing Philanthropy, March/April 2002. Advancing Philanthropy is the journal of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (formerly NSFRE)) You’re confident that your organization is doing great work with the money that you’re raising. If only you could sit down and show your donors how carefully you’re using their money, how much good you’re achieving, and how much work you still have left to do. You’re convinced that, if they knew, they’d open their purse strings to give more and give more often. Of course, you can’t visit all your donors individually, but your website is a great opportunity to “virtually” show them your progress. Doing so not only will raise more money but will also close the loop with your fundraising by showing donors, and everyone else, that you’re using the money you raised exactly the way you said you would. Article IV of the AFP’s Donor Bill of Rights says that donors have the right “to be assured their gifts will be used for the purposes for which they were given.” As fundraisers, it’s our obligation to defend that right by all means at our disposal. Recently, some of the major organizations that mounted relief campaigns on behalf of September 11 victims found themselves being grilled about how they planned to use the millions of dollars they raised immediately after the attacks. If these world-renowned, experienced, well-respected charities can be exposed to such pointed interrogations, consider how vulnerable your organization might be. Please note that this article is not a legal treatise on the subject of donor intent or restricted funds but, rather, practical advice you can use to continue the fundraising conversation with your donors, thus reducing the likelihood that donor-intent questions will be directed at your charity. USE THE WEB TO KEEP YOUR FIELD STAFF ‘ON MESSAGE’ The Web is a great way to keep regional fundraising staff and chapters singing from the same sheet of music. You can establish private sections of your website just for field staff. There, you can update them on the results of a campaign in more operational detail than you would want to give donors. Staff could even post ideas to each other about what techniques are working and ask questions about the way the leadership is describing the organization’s activities--particularly valuable for reinforcing a spirit of teamwork when the mission could be changing. For example, if you have mission activities underway in a hostile country; knowing the day-to-day status of those operations may be critically important to some key donors. You don’t want to put a field fundraiser in the awkward position of not knowing whether your people have been chased out of the country by its despot du jour. You can bet that your donor was watching CNN right before the fundraiser showed up at her office! There’s no reason your fundraiser can’t be equipped to say, “I checked our website right before I came here, and, as of noon today, our staff was still in the country.” Or if you’ve got people raising funds for a new campus library while the architects are still making changes, think how valuable it would be for the fundraisers, to be able to check on the status of those changes. Today’s donors want more--and more specific--information about how their funds are being used. They want more--and more specific--details about the mission. And they’re better informed about local and global events than ever. You can’t afford to be behind them in the information curve. COORDINATE YOUR DIRECT APPEALS WITH THE WEB Create a section of your website that specifically details the campaign you’ve most recently put in the mail. Use the same language, but tell the story in much greater detail (you can afford to, space being no constraint). Right in the thank you letter, tell donors the Web address of that section, so they can get regular updates on the status of the campaign. Make sure that you clearly and consistently state in all media how gifts will be used. Check the language of your printed and online donation forms, including the thank you card and confirmation Web page. Check the e-mail or phone script that goes out automatically after an online or mailed-in donation is processed to make sure donors hear not just “thank you for your gift” but “thank you for your gift, which will enable us to….” You can post fundraising results, if you want to (a virtual version of the United Way “thermometer” in the town square), showing pictures of boxes of food headed out to the hungry or the smiling faces of poor children listening to a missionary preach. I’ve even heard of a university that had a “library-cam”--a digital camera mounted on a building next to the new campus library construction site. Every few minutes, it captured an updated snapshot of the state of the construction and posted it to the website for donors to see. SHOW YOUR DONORS GRAPHICALLY HOW THEIR MONEY IS BEING USED Use charts and diagrams to show donors your progress toward a goal. Back it up with pictures of their money in action. A digital camera can provide almost instant Web content. For example, the Red Cross, www.redcross.org has a link on its start page called “Your Donations at Work” that takes donors to a section with descriptions of how funds are being used. The section specifically deals with distribution of post-September 11 donations to the Liberty Fund. A pop-up box shows more statistics than you’ll find at the end of a baseball game. Don’t forget to ask for follow-up gifts in the pages that show how your donations are being spent. What greater confirmation could donors give you that they’re pleased with how their money is working than an additional gift on the spot? If you have several campaigns going on at once, create Web pages that allow personalized direction to information about the good that a donor’s gift is doing. For example, if you’re raising money for a new library as well as a scholarship fund, you can direct library donors to the page that summarizes the library construction process and send scholarship donors to a page that shows how the scholarships are being used. (It’s as easy to vary the Web address in a thank you letter, based on the source code assigned to a gift, as it is to vary the ask amount.) Link each of these personalized pages to lots of follow-up content that answers more questions than donors could possibly have—the fact alone that you’re volunteering so much information will be reassuring. Donors and potential donors alike who might not have formulated any questions can become educated by browsing a FAQ (“frequently asked questions”) page. TRACK DONOR INTERESTS TO INITIATE COMMUNICATION Ask your webmaster about serving cookies to your donors’ computers to track the sections each user visits. A cookie, which is a small file that your website places on a donor’s computer, “remembers” the specific pages that the donor visits (in the example above, the library pages or the scholarship pages). On subsequent visits to your site, donors will automatically be directed to the sections they’ve shown interest in for updates—and fresh encouragement to make new gifts. Collect the e-mail addresses of offline donors (you already collect them on Web donors) and send personalized e-mails directing them to the Web sections that show how their gifts are being used. Tell them the website was just updated to show recent progress on their project. Look at the websites of “competing” organizations to find out how they are honoring donor intent on their sites, and look at other nonprofit websites outside your focus, as well, to pick up more design and content-organization ideas you can adapt to make your donor-update pages more interesting. See the sidebar for some sites worth visiting to glean ideas. Your website can become a vital part of your overall fundraising process if you set it up so that it supports your other efforts to inform donors about your organization’s accomplishments and ongoing needs. Your donors will become better informed and, in all likelihood, more committed when you give them reasons to visit your website frequently for new information. And they won’t be as concerned about how you’re using their money when they know exactly what you’re doing with it. Are your intentions honorable? Of course they are. And low-cost Web communication strategies will help you get this information out to donors. Rick Christ helps nonprofit organizations use the Internet for advocacy, fundraising, and marketing and is a member of AFP’s Shenandoah, VA, chapter. For specific examples of how charities' websites are demonstrating their wise use of donors' funds, read 'Good Intentions' Storytellers April 2002 | ||
