Is Your Organization on the Bandwagon?
Donor Detectives Team
A recent benchmark study held by the Charity Dynamics agency found that a mass majority of nonprofits are finally on the online integrated bandwagon. The report is titled Interactive Investment Benchmark Study: How Today’s Nonprofits Approach Digital Spending and Why It Matters to You.
For-profit organizations have been on the interactive and data-sharing bandwagon for many decades now. But for so long, given tight nonprofit budgets, leadership has been hesitant to invest due to the need for short-term return. Consider, however, the famous ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and the successful American Red Cross’s “text to give” featuring First Lady Michelle Obama. These were two very noticeable interactive campaigns, and perhaps their revenue reports helped nonprofits see the importance of the bandwagon. Integrated campaigns are not cheap, yet single channel campaigns report an even greater loss.
Charity Dynamics points out that the decision to invest in digital often brings great anxiety for many organizations, perhaps due to the cost. Then there is the API. What? The Application Programming Interface that shares data between multiple software systems. Why does this seem so complicated? No wonder nonprofit leadership teams are experiencing anxiety!
Now that fundraising marketing involves all these multiple channels, how else do we keep track of everything? How do we know that the marketing mix we are using is building a strong return? How are we to customize a “donor-centric” program without understanding the data? Furthermore, some organizations have two or more software solutions to keep track of email campaigns, donor management, website tracking, and more! The days of just tracking a mail appeal code are long gone.
So this blog isn’t to bum you out. It is to push you to think about the loss of revenue the organization is experiencing without an integrated multichannel fundraising marketing program using API. The good thing … the profit sector has been doing this for decades and doing it really well.
So jump on the wagon with us!