"Completely on the page with e-fundraising"
Howard Lake | 13 February 2008 | Blogs
Such was the defence from Andrew Cates, Chief Executive of SOS Children’s Villages, who to their credit have just celebrated a ‘landmark year for fundraising’ without the typical (over) reliance on direct mail.
In fact, the charity succeeded on the back of very little communication and no appeals, but clearly enough contact to satisfy supporters and increase giving by record levels. Andrew has all but abandoned direct mail and says his charity barely needs it; he then goes on to explain why internet fundraising is so cool – view the article to read Andrew’s account for yourself – http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/editorial.htm. And go on, why not let yourself feel encouraged and emboldened too (hopefully that doesn’t just mean adding heavy black formatting to text).
Andrew was railing against a negative news story on Intelligent Giving’s website (Why Are Charity Wevbsites So Bad? – http://www.intelligentgiving.com/the_buzz/the_blog/why_are_charity_websites_so_bad), which in turn was spawned by some editorial from nfpSynergy’s excellent 21st Century Donor report entitled “The revolution that never was: fundraising and the internet”.
It’s not that these articles get it badly wrong. It’s that they present a downer on the whole saga of online return on investment whilst seldom offering any direction and encouragement for making things better. Andrew does no such thing and ends his article with some advice for Internet fundraising. He says it would be churlish not to.
I’m also happy to report that I am part of a drive to come up with a fresh take on online fundraising and set out some public recommendations and practical ./guidance for how to find success. But more on that in another post…
For the last word goes to Andrew: “Some of us are completely on the page on e-fundraising (we get 80-90% of new donors that way which with 35% annual growth is quite something)”
Yes Andrew, it is something to be proud of and I warmly congratulate you for it! I’m passing the feel good on.
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.