The Future of Fundraising, Part Two

TechSoup hosted its first ever Nonprofits Live on the Future of Fundraising back in 2011. The episode examined some of the ways technology and social media can be harnessed to support causes.

Only one year later, much has changed. Social media adoption continues to grow and technology becomes more accessible.

The Growth in Smartphones and Social Media

Globally, 34 percent of people report owning smartphones — a number that grew by 10 percent between 2010 and 2011.

Online video consumption rates are now as high as television viewer rates globally.

Surprisingly, 35 percent of respondents to a Nielsen study indicate being open to making online payments on their smartphones.

A recent study finds that 73 percent of Internet users in Europe use social networks. In the United States, 66 percent of Internet users are on social networks according to the Pew Research Center.

Harnessing Technology to Create Good

The power of technology and social media to create change is real as evidenced by movements like the Arab Spring. Dosta!, which means "enough," began online and moved offline to solidify a movement to create a better Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Restart Romania challenge resulted in citizens proposing technological solutions to a range of real world problems such as corruption in the medical system. 

Harness Technology and Social Media to Raise Money

Social-benefit organizations can learn a lot from the preceding examples and those that follow to harness the power of technology and social media for fundraising.

• Text-to-Give Tweet Chat Recap: Did you know more people worldwide have regular access to mobile devices than computers? Learn how your organization can best use mobile from actual case studies in this recap of TechSoup’s Text-to-Give Tweet Chat.
• Telling Better Stories: Fundraising Tips from #12NTC: People don’t give just because you ask them — they give because they find your message and organization’s mission compelling. A session at the 2012 Nonprofit Technology Conference, recounted on the TechSoup blog, offers advice on using storytelling for fundraising.
• 2011 Online Giving Grows 13 Percent — Are You Prepared to Get Your Share? Blackbaud’s 2011 Online Giving Report finds that online giving grew by 13 percent over the previous year. Find out more and download the report in its entirety.
• Four Simple Online Fundraising Tactics Designed to Increase Giving: If you’re just starting out with online fundraising, then these four tactics are a great place to begin.
• Four Strategies for Online Fundraising Campaigns: SocialBrite offers four approaches for online fundraising.
• Five Best Practices for Email Fundraising and Marketing: Email remains the best way to reach a broad audience online. Don’t overlook email as a part of your online fundraising strategy, and follow the best practices recommended in this article.
• Does Facebook Work for Fundraising? This post from the Care2 FrogLoop blog examines the difference between using Facebook for collecting donations and fundraising.

The future of fundraising was a recent topic at the Social Media for Nonprofits Conference in Silicon Valley. Staff from the TechSoup online community and social media team were on hand to record the following presentation by David Boyce, CEO of Fundly.

If your organization would like to share how it has used tech and social media tools for online fundraising, send us your story.