# 30% of charity supporters inspired by social media to give, says Give as you Live

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/03/08/30-charity-supporters-inspired-social-media-give-says-give-you-live/
- Published: 2013-03-08T15:00:59+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

![](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/files/images/news/digital-donor-survey-cover.gif)

![](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/files/images/news/digital-donor-review-2013-cover.
gif)

A survey of nearly 8,000 UK charity donors confirms that Facebook and Twitter conversations
do generate charity donations. Give as you Live's Donor Survey found that  30% of
UK charity supporters say that social media campaigns have inspired them to give.

[Give as you Live](http://www.giveasyoulive.com) is the online platform which generates
income for charities when their supporters shop online.  The funds come from the
retailers’ marketing budget, at no extra cost to the shopper.

## Digital Giving Review

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The Donor Survey is part of Give as you Live’s **Digital Giving Review** and follows
its [Charity Review 2012](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/news/2012/07/02/30-donations-are-online-says-digital-giving-review-2012),
which looked at how over 500 charities were using digital media to fundraise.

Give as you Live founder and CEO Polly Gowers, OBE, said: "It’s clear that in our
multichannel world one of the many challenges any organisation faces is where to
focus their resources. Our aim with our on-going research is to help charities by
highlighting the best channels to communicate to their growing number of digital
donors.”

## Six types of digital donors

Levels of interaction with charities using social media is high: 50% of respondents
follow their favourite charities on Facebook and 20% follow them on Twitter.

Give as you Live used the data with ACORN profiling to produce six distinct digital
donor profiles, giving each of them a name. Their report then looks at how these
different types of donors interact and give to charities using social media, which
are more likely to use particular tools like smartphones, and which shop online 
more than others.

The six types are:

·         **Family man Clive**: 8% of respondents – Occasionally uses text and online
sponsorship sites

·         **Wealthy professional Jacqueline**: 15% of respondents – Regularly sponsors
via online giving sites

·         **Affluent oldie Margaret**: 13% of respondents – Donates most via Direct
Debit

·         **Comfortable families Marie**: 31% of respondents – Heavy online shopper,
uses Give as you Live

·         **Single young starter Neil**: 18% of respondents – Most likely to give
via text

·         **Squeezed families Rachel**: 8% of respondents – Very engaged on Facebook

![Likelihood of following a charity via social media](https://www.fundraising.co.
uk/files/images/digital-donor-survey-p15.jpg)

Charities that participated in the research will receive a breakdown of how their
supporter base maps onto each donor profile, to help them understand their supporters’
digital behaviour and preferences.

## What digital donors do

## ![Usage of different channels](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/files/images/digital-donor-survey-p14.jpg)

 *  Across the ten types of charities listed, health and medical charities are the
   most likely to supported by the digital donors surveyed.
     
 *  Children’s charities are the second mostly likely type of charity to be supported.
   
 *  Across all of our donors the main reason for visiting a charity’s website was
   for information.
     
 *  On average, 22% of the times the digital donors visited a charity’s website 
   it was to make a donation, the second most popular reason for visiting.
     
 *  The least popular reason for visiting a charity’s website was to look for job
   vacancies.

[⌊Prompts to donate to charity⌉⌊Prompts to donate to charity⌉[

 *  A friend or family member asking for sponsorship online is by far the most popular
   reason for giving reported by the respondents.
     
 *  Celebrity appeals did not inspire many to give: only 4% of all of digital donors
   who responded said that celebrity association was the reason they gave.
     
 *  The digital donors surveyed were also not inspired by print or TV adverts, claiming
   these to be amongst the least inspiring communication channels.
     

The Digital Donor Review is available for free download.

www.digitaldonorreview.com

 * **[Majority of Britons think retailers don’t support charity, says Give as you Live survey](https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/10/31/majority-britons-think-retailers-don039t-support-charity-says-give-you-live-survey/)**(
   31 October 2013)
 * **[Give as you Live and Freegle partner](https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/11/27/give-live-freegle-partner/)**(
   27 November 2013)
 * **[Digital Donor Review confirms growth in mobile giving](https://fundraising.co.uk/2014/02/13/digital-donor-review-confirms-growth-mobile-giving/)**(
   13 February 2014)
