Online Appeals To Donors, Nonprofits

Forget the folding, licking and stamping – more and more nonprofits are saying goodbye to the envelopes and are turning to their computers for fundraising help.

Convio is a Texas-based company that works with nonprofits to use the Internet to maximize fundraising and marketing. “Virtually all of the nonprofit groups that Convio talks to accept online donations,” said Vinay Bhagat, Convio's founder and chief strategy officer. Bhagat attributes the increase in online fundraising to people becoming more comfortable with reading content and transacting on the Internet. According to the ePhilanthropy Foundation, the amount of online giving has continually increased over the past five years. The foundation estimates people donated a total of $2.62 billion online in 2004.

The Mental Health Association of Franklin County is a nonprofit organization that has experienced online success. This past May the organization hosted its second online auction. “We tripled the amount of money we made in one year, it’s terrific,” said Laura Moskow Sigal, executive director.

Because the organization is a small nonprofit, it first considered an online auction to help save money and staff time as compared to planning a formal event. That is a cost-effective decision according to Bhagat, “In general, the cost to implement a basic online donation capability barely costs anything,” he said.

To further curb expenses, Moskow Sigal says her organization did not do any direct mailing to market their online auction. Instead, the organization relied on public service announcements, emails to their database and a media partner to help promote the event. However, Bhagat recommends not foregoing the direct marketing altogether, “Convio has found that when groups effectively integrate different marketing strategies, they achieve much stronger results.”

According to Moskow Sigal, saving time and money helped to convince her board to agree to an online auction, but that was not the only convincing factor. The auction also served as another way for the organization to achieve its mission, “We are a public information organization, our goal is to get people educated about mental health issues, and the auction drove people to our website.” In fact, the website had 380,000 hits during the auction. With those kinds of numbers, and by placing company logos and links on the auction page, corporate sponsors and donors were also on board with the idea.

By going online, the organization was also able to reach a larger audience. Whereby only local supporters would be available to attend a formal auction, donors all over the world have access to an event on the Internet. The organization has plans to do it again next year, “We hope to build on this and make it bigger and bigger,” said Moskow Sigal.

If you would like more information about online fundraising and marketing, contact OANO’s office at 888-480-6266.