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March Madness - Part 1 - Gathering insights from events

5 members of the global give2gether team just returned from an exhilarating week on the road in the US, where we attended two of the most exciting, innovative and thought provoking conferences on fundraising; NTC in Washington DC and AFP in Chicago.

We managed to speak to hundreds of inspirational fundraisers, representing some of the most hard-working and varied NPOs out there.

We wanted to share with you a few interesting insights that we gathered from all of our conversations.

• #1 - A surprising number of NPOs are either not doing any online fundraising yet, or are just at the beginning stages.  But there is growing excitement and a sense of urgency about prioritizing online fundraising efforts.
• #2 – A lot of NPOs historically have an older, more traditional supporter base, typically reaching out with physical mail rather than emails and social network communications.  NPOs are going through the arduous process of collecting email addresses for existing supporters.  However, they are also keen to start building a new, younger supporter base, to quickly drive online activity and buzz.
• #3 - Lots of NPOs are pasting together different services from multiple providers (donation processing, email blasts, social media presence etc) rather than choosing one platform that combines all the pieces of the puzzle.  However, this seems to be due to a lack of knowledge about comprehensive, holistic services that are out there, rather than a preference for splitting up the services.
• #4 - NPOs agree that running targeted campaigns, enlisting support to meet specific targets to accomplish specific goals, rather than ‘general fundraising’, encourages activity, responsiveness and supporter's willingness to donate.
• #5 – There is growing activity on social networks, with many NPOs building a presence on Facebook, in order to quickly and easily communicate with supporters.  NPOs would like to use this channel to allow their supporters to donate and spread the word.

Hopefully these insights will give you some food for thought, as you navigate your own online fundraising path.  If you also attended one of the conferences, let us know what you learnt, so we can swap stories! And stay tuned for the second part of our 'March Madness' blog post on 'Hype, Buzz and a Mashable Post'...