Successes for US non-profits in online fundraising for tsunami appeal
Howard Lake | 5 January 2005 | News
Writing in his latest e-fund News, US online fundraising consultant Rick Christ reports on successes achieved by some US non-profits in fundraising online in response to the Asian tsunami disaster.
Rick Christ reports that Childcare International, a small child sponsorship organisation based in Bellingham, Washington, sent an email appeal one day after the disaster to the 800 supporters, about 25% of all their supporters, for whom they had email addresses. By the afternoon of the next day (28 December) they had received $5,000 in pledges, or about $7 per email sent.
Mr Christ adds that “other organizations are reporting December giving totals from three to ten times their projected amounts.”
Advertisement
One non-profit was even faster to respond. Mr Christ reports on an unnamed client that got to work with his agency on an appeal on the day of the disaster. They authorised NP Advisors to buy keywords on online advertising networks and to begin writing an email appeal to sponsors. “The keywords have produced over 34,000 visits to their tsunami relief page to date, and together with the email they have raised about ten times their normal December amount online, mostly in the last few days of the month”, reports Mr Christ. “The keywords have helped generate over 600 new online donors to their cause.”
While Mr Christ shares most fundraisers’ awe at the speed and scale of public generosity in the wake of this disaster, he, like UK Fundraising, is not impressed with the speed of some agencies to mount an effective appeal, especially online. “While this [giving] is encouraging”, he writes, “it should also be noted that many nonprofits were slow to start online efforts related to this disaster. Some were waiting from orders from international headquarters, who in turn were waiting for word from the field, as the magnitude of the disaster slowly emerged. Still other nonprofit managers were on vacation in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day and let life pass them by.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.