What will fundraising be like in 2020? and more...

Bernard Ross and the crew at The Management Centre have developed a great wiki about the future of fundraising. Here’s my contribution.

The Long Tail will get longer:

Although some of the fundraising scenarios here recognise that many of the current ‘blue chip’ charities will be replaced, there will always be a core of big players in every nonprofit marketplace. The current players who are particularly slow to react or respond because of their internal bureaucracies will be left for dead. 
But what about the rest? Smaller, nimbler and more effective nonprofits will spring up to make an impact on the causes dear to their tech-savvy and well-connected founders. In effect, this will create a long tail of hundreds of thousands of smaller organisations able to use their wired networks to create the impact that they desire. Already, in most countries, fundraisers bemoan the fact that there are ‘too many’ nonprofits. Well, you aint seen nothing yet. These new small nonprofits will be:

• One hundred per cent online. They will have no need to be encumbered by the costs and limitations of offline real estate and bricks and mortar.
• Borderless: There will be no need to restrict fundraising to a geographic location. Fundraisers will predominantly build their networks online and connect with donors all over the world. And donors won’t concern themselves with where the organisation is based, to get the impact they desire. Donors from Australia will want to give clean water to kids in Africa, if that’s their thing. They won’t care where the organisation is located.
• Shooting stars: From these new small nonprofits, occasional stars will shoot. They will be the ones that make giving fun and addictive, will look at everything from the donor’s point of view (see impact, below), be passionate and unfailingly determined and have tremendous whuffie (also known as reputation, trust and credibility in online communities and networks).

It’s all about impact:

• Dollar value on impact. Nonprofits that can put a dollar value on an outcome will continue to come out on top. Often called a ‘dollar handle’, this nifty tool is becoming more and more prominent. At charity:water your gift of US$20 will give one person clean water for 20 years. At Concern Worldwide your gift of US$28 can provide the uniform, books, pencils, and paper a child needs to attend one year of school.
• Donors will respond more generously when they have the opportunity to connect directly with beneficiaries. While Twitter will have been superseded by who knows what, we’ll see more campaigns like the recent TweetsGiving at Epic Change, where donors could communicate directly with kids at the local school in Tanzania. Simply beautiful.
• High impact collaborations: High-end donors will want to work together to have more impact, and will expect nonprofits to do the same.
• New-breed social entrepreneurs like Blake Mykoskie at TOMS Shoes will bypass the traditional charity model altogether and opt for creating massive, direct impact. Over the last few years, Blake Mykoskie has given 400,000 pairs of shoes to people in need all around the world.

Fundraisers everywhere in the world will get wired and more effective at their jobs (that is, raise more money):
Fundraisers will become more informed than ever before, with resources like the Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration (SOFII) and hundreds of fundraising bloggers forming a strong and diverse fundraising and learning community.

• Goodbye Microsoft Office: Small nonprofits will finally take full advantage of online technology, and not just for fundraising. There are already so many free and affordable collaboration and communication tools such as 37Signals, Google Docs, GoogleWave and Yammer . While these tools will be superseded, tools like these will change the way fundraisers work.
• Nonprofits will understand that websites are not the be all and end all to the web. The smart ones will come at technology that promotes storytelling, collaboration, networking and conversations (hey, isn’t that what fundraising’s all about?)
• Video killed the radio star: Nonprofits will finally understand that video is a great way of sharing their stories and fundraising, thanks to YouTube , Vimeo and the current new breed of nonprofits like charity:water.
• It won’t just be SMS, although right now, SMS makes it incredibly easy to give, as we’ve seen in the massive and generous response to the January 2010 Haiti Earthquake. But moving beyond that, there will be new mechanisms and technologies that will mean we can donate with our mobile phones (or whatever it is you call them these days!) With just one click, no web forms, no barriers.

There are many more experts’ scenarios on the Fundraising Scenarios wiki. I’d particularly draw your attention to:

• Chris Washington Sare’s scenario. He’s the head of fundraising and marketing at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
• Ken Burnett’s scenario. He’s the author of Relationship Fundraising and founder of www.sofii.org.
• Usha Menon’s scenario. She’s the director of the Management Center in Asia.

Please join the conversation. What do you think fundraising will be like in 2020?

@aidwkr: landed in Port au Prince today – this place is chaos, devestation is profound and this is going to be a long haul ..11:03 AM Jan 16th from web

@aidwkr is Dominic MacSorley, a Concern aid worker in Port au Prince, Haiti. His tweets from 16 January onwards tell a remarkable story of sadness, hope and humour.

I heard about Dominic yesterday morning, when I received a thank you email from Concern, in response to a donation I made a few days ago. They suggested I follow him on Twitter. Reading his tweets brought a tear to my eyes and reaffirmed the importance of my donation to Concern.

It’s great to see Twitter being used to tell stories. You can see Dominic’s tweets here (for those new to Twitter, start from his 16 Jan post and read upwards).

And if you’re looking for more information about donations and fundraising in response to the earthquake in Haiti, check out the regular updates and news roundups from Chronicle of Philanthropy.

By the end of this year, Blake Mycoskie will have given away approximately 300,000 pairs of shoes to kids in need.

How? He set up TOMS Shoes (short for Tomorrow’s Shoes) in 2006. And for every pair of shoes that a customer buys, he gives a pair to someone who has probably never, ever before, worn a pair of shoes.

Here’s why that’s so important:

Most children in developing countries grow up barefoot. Whether at play, doing chores or just getting around, these children are at risk.

Walking is often the primary mode of transportation in developing countries. Children can walk for miles to get food, water, shelter and medical help. Wearing shoes literally enables them to walk distances that aren’t possible barefoot.

Wearing shoes prevents feet from getting cuts and sores on unsafe roads and from contaminated soil. Not only are these injuries painful, they are dangerous when wounds become infected. The leading cause of disease in developing countries is soil-transmitted parasites which penetrate the skin through open sores. Wearing shoes can prevent this and the risk of amputation.

Many times children can’t attend school barefoot because shoes are a required part of their uniform. If they don’t have shoes, they don’t go to school. If they don’t receive an education, they don’t have the opportunity to realize their potential.

There is one simple solution…SHOES.

Of the planet’s six billion people, four billion live in conditions inconceivable to many. Let’s take a step towards a better tomorrow.

- From TOMS Shoes website

Blake Mycoskie has created a movement, not a shoe store. You can find more on Twitter, Facebook, and TOMS brilliant website. And the crew at TOMS shoes are great storytellers. Check out one of their videos here.

I think, and hope, we’ll be seeing more social entrepreneurs like Blake Mycoskie. What do you think?

[Photo credit: TOMS Shoes]

Have you thought about sending a nice ‘end of year’ thank you email to your donors? Or maybe you’ve already got one planned.

Here’s a nice, simple example from Defenders of Wildlife, a terrific US-based organization. While it has a thanksgiving theme, it can easily adapted to whatever it is that you celebrate, or just an ‘as the year draws to a close, I wanted to take one last opportunity to thank you…’ approach.

You can view the full email here.

And if you’d like to find out more about DoW’s online and offline fundraising, check out this SOFII exhibit.

[image credit: Defenders of Wildlife]

The other day, I looked back on the emails I’ve received over the past few months from charity: water. They’re all very good, but there was one that got me right where it should. In fact, I think it’s one of the best charity emails I’ve received all year.

I’ve been following charity:water’s meteoric rise for some time now on twitter and through their website. Since their inception three years ago, they have raised about US$10 million from approximately 50,000 supporters. And as a result have helped almost one million people in 15 countries to access clean water. Their almost overnight success has come as a result of sheer determination, brilliant networking and excellent fundraising.  (BTW, they’re looking for a director of fundraising.)

They are the most followed charity on Twitter, with over one million followers, have raised substantial money by using Twitter (more about that another time) and are doing so much right online to build a strong support base, as this recent email demonstrates.

What’s so great about the email I received from charity: water?

Let’s start with the subject line. It didn’t say: Latest news update from charity:water. It said: Will the beautiful women of the world please stand up.

The picture at the top of the email was of a proud and striking woman. It was clear that this was her story, and that of Program Director Becky Straw. It looked interesting and again I read on.

The intro from founder Scott Harrison went like this:

Our Water Program Director Becky Straw recently returned from Northern Uganda, where it all began for charity: water. In 2006, donors funded the first set of wells in a refugee camp that desperately needed clean water. Today, thanks to your continued help, we have 88 clean water projects serving over 58,000 people in Uganda. I hope Becky’s story touches you as it touched many people here in our office. – Scott Harrison

And Becky’s story was very moving indeed – mission-centered, highly descriptive and intensely personal. Here are just a few excerpts:

From my vantage point in the truck, I watch women gather up their children and move to the edge of the road to let us pass. Their feet are gnarled and calloused: a result of thousands of miles walked barefoot over rocks and mud. With babies strapped to their backs, their brightly colored skirts sway and their knees quiver and brace under the weight of water and children. Most balance pails on their heads, while some grip 80 pounds of water with sweaty palms, a bright yellow 5-gallon Jerry Can in each hand…

… This is when I met Helen Apio. While most women hung back politely, Helen jumped toward me and screamed two inches from my face. Technically, it was singing. But the high-pitched shrieking was so loud and reverberated with such energy and emotion, I knew I had to talk with her.

She told me about the new freshwater well in her village.

“I am happy now,” Helen beamed. “I have time to eat, my children can go to school. And I can even work in my garden, take a shower and then come back for more water if I want! I am bathing so well.”

I’m in awe of how they manage. But of course, they have no choice. The average woman in Africa walks three miles every day for water. Often, it’s water from putrid rivers or disease-infested swamps. Worldwide, women are more than twice as likely as men to collect drinking water.

And it gets even better. I recommend you read the full email from beginning to end here.

It’s a great example of how you can share stories ‘from the field’. For your organisation, that might be through your nurses, researchers, trainers, counsellors or campaigners.

Finally a strong donate button on the bottom and, you guessed it, I pressed it. It’s interesting to note that all charity:water’s donations are processed through Paypal, including their regular monthly gifts. And it worked like a dream. (Their donate page is one of the best I’ve seen, too. So simple.)

Want more?

There’s a lot we fundraisers can learn from charity:water. Check out this New York Times article about founder Scott Harrison. Or watch this video about how it all started for charity:water and their 3rd birthday fundraiser, Born in September.

I’d welcome your thoughts, so please comment. Link to your own examples of brilliant fundraising emails or please send your examples to me.

[photo credit: charity: water]