How often do you donate to your own charity online?
Howard Lake | 24 December 2009 | Blogs
One of my passions around online fundraising is that the technology is a means to an end. Yes technology can give us some fun gadgets to play with and can be part of attracting donors but for the most part, an online donation is still at the end of the day a person giving money to another person in order to help someone. Good online fundraising technology will not get in the way of that personal transaction.
I’ve recently given money to two national charities online and in both cases the online donation process didn’t include a thank you for my donation and so far, I haven’t received a single piece of follow up communication from either charity.
Now I hope my sample of two out of 160,000 is un-representative of the average but I’m worried that the experience a lot of donors are getting online isn’t giving them the positive experience that is so crucial for them to go on to be a regular donor.
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The best way for fundraisers to personalise the donation experience is to give a small amount of their own money to their own charity and feel the experience for themselves. I bet most online fundraisers would spot several ways that the experience could be improved and personalised and some would be shocked at the experience.
Go on try it out!
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.