Frank Barry is a digital and online marketing strategist at Blackbaud. He's spent close to ten years helping nonprofits be more effective online (fundraising, email communications, social media, technology solutions).

Are you searching for ways to raise more money for your organization?

If you’ve been in the nonprofit industry for a while, you’ve likely heard that “direct mail is dead” or that offline fundraising is on the decline.

Why?

Because Internet usage continues to skyrocket. Data storage and hardware is cheap. Smartphones are in everyone’s hands and social networking online has become an everyday activity for millions of people.

Simply put, the world is going online.

All these elements (and many others) lead one to believe that “going online” is a must. That online fundraising is the way for your organization to break through its fundraising ceiling and raise millions of dollars tomorrow. But …

Offline Still Rules

90 percent or more of fundraising revenue comes from offline sources. Direct mail and other offline fundraising sources are still the most effective ways to raise money – by a long shot!

Online Is a Critical Piece

You could argue that if offline fundraising accounts for such a large portion of fundraising revenue in the industry then you should place all your focus there. But that would be slightly short-sighted. Online fundraising continues to grow by leaps and bounds. It’s grown 34.5 percent to $20+ billion in 2010. And it continues to be the best way to acquire new donors.

What the Data Tells Us

They key to raising more money is to figure out how to utilize offline and online channels together. When you do them both well you have an opportunity to increase overall giving per donor by up to 3 times that of a single channel donor. Check out the multichannel fundraising infographic below to learn more about how online and offline giving go hand in hand.

Data sources used in above infographic:

• 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report
• 2010 Online Giving Report by Blackbaud

What do you think? Share your tips on successfully building multichannel fundraising at your organization in the comments below.