10 steps to online fundraising and fundraising analytics

The first 10 things you must The first 10 things you must g yg ydo to setup online fundraising do to setup online fundraising

and analyticsand analyticsand analyticsand analyticsShabbir Imber SafdarShabbir Imber Safdar

July 22, 2011

www.safdaranalytics.com Twitter: @ShabbirSafdar / #thebridgeconf

The GoalYour goal is to fundraise online, not to:• Tweak the fields in your database/crm;• Tweak the fields in your database/crm;• Endlessly analyze a too small sample of your analytics data;• Re-arrange the layout and navigation of your website;• Play with your email templates; ory y• Re-arrange your donor forms.

Don’t get stuck in the technology trap.

Modern online fundraising efforts are built upon your ability to successfully execute your mission, and explain the impact that execution has on the world around you to the public.


When is it enough to tweak my g ytech?

Wh h i t tl t t ll i i l il k fWhen you have consistently put out a small, original email every week for four months that talks about your work without being repetitive or tired, you’ve conquered the content beast.

(Or a bi-weekly newsletter for eight months)

You now probably have enough experience producing content that you can spare a few moments to look at your technology and make some changesspare a few moments to look at your technology and make some changes.

When you have 10 months of data (Jan-October), you have enough data to start doing planning for the upcoming year.


The pieces you needyIdeally, you want:• Database + Payment processing + Email marketing• WebsiteWebsite• Analytics

You may settle for:Database + Email marketing• Database + Email marketing

• Payment processing• Website• Analyticsy

Integration costs money. You can pay a vendor for an integrated package, or you can pay an integrator to integrate them, or you can pay yourself to integrate them It all costs moneyyourself to integrate them. It all costs money.

Pick the combination that gets you up and running the quickest and revisit your decision in 6 months.


Minimum functionality you needy y• You have a CRM that understands basic nonprofit donor management

(householding, donation history, etc).• People who come to your website can signup for your email list without

your manual intervention.• You can easily create multiple donation forms and link to them.• You can place a piece of Javascript code on the donation form, the

donation thank you page and the pages of your websitedonation thank you page, and the pages of your website.• You can compose an email (without using HTML); you can send an

email and track opens and clicks.

Wh h ff i hWhat you may have to suffer with:

• Manually adding people from your donation forms to your CRM or your email list. (A good problem to have!)A b it th t d ’t l k ll th t t• A website that doesn’t look all that great


Some optionsAnalytics: Google Analytics Website: Wordpress, Typepad…beware Drupal or any proprietary

templating system without drag and drop functionality.P tPayment Processor: Piryx, DonationPay, Paypal, Google Checkout, Amazon for

Nonprofits + 99 othersCRM: Salesforce, CommonGround, CivicCRM + 25 othersEmail: Constant Contact, MailChimp, MyEmma + 10 others

CRM + Payments+ Email: CivicCRM CommonGround DonorPerfect DonorPro+ Email: CivicCRM, CommonGround, DonorPerfect, DonorPro,

eTapestry, GiftWorks, Neon, GiftWorks, TrailBlazer

See the IdealWare/NTEN Low Cost Donor Management Systems report from June 2011 at www.idealware.org for a full matrix.


Avoiding the technology trapg gy• Better to be up and running than picking a technology.• This won’t be a permanent decision, talk to some other

groups find out the drawbacks see if you can live withgroups, find out the drawbacks, see if you can live with them, take a few demos and signup.

• You will learn more by living with a product and it’s pain i t th b i i th d i ipoints than by agonizing over the decision.

Make this decision in less than a week.

Start a list of all the things you hate about your current product that you can use when you investigate a switch a year from now.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.


The first six thingsg1. Secure your domain name as a .org (get the .com if you

can). Get your twitter handle and Facebook page. For in house email go with Google Apps for Businesshouse email, go with Google Apps for Business.

2. Get a copy of HootSuite to manage the latter two.3. Pick your website product and deploy Google analytics4. Pick your email product / donation processor / crm5 S t / il d t d t i iti l li t f5. Setup your crm / email product and put your initial list of

supporters into them.6. Learn how to setup donation forms. Set up unique ones

every time you have a campaign or a unique pitch.y y p g q p


Content

Your job as a nonprofit is to define and own your issue.

You don’t want to be in the business of only talking about yourself, so define your issue broader than just the work you do You want it to be broad enough that you talk about otherdo. You want it to be broad enough that you talk about other people doing similar work.

Consider yourself “The XXXXXX News Network”, where XXXXXX i iXXXXXX is your issue.


How do you generate this?y g

Consider the following sources of information:

• Stories about your own work that you write. (hard, I know!)

• Interviews with people relevant to your mission areaInterviews with people relevant to your mission area• Stories about similar work being done by other

organizations (a little easier)• Stories and news about your mission area (let Google

N b id )News be your guide)• News from large companies that operate in your mission

area• Commemorations of historical events


Example: privacy advocatesy

• Stories about their work to advocate privacy to various governments

• Interviews with people making news in the privacy arena (regulators legislators activists “victims”)(regulators, legislators, activists, victims )

• Wins by other privacy organizations• News about privacy pulled from Google News,

summarized and condensed for your audienceP bli di l (SEC fili ) b t i li biliti b• Public disclosures (SEC filings) about privacy liabilities by large corporations. Other materials found in public filings of privacy technology organizations.


Editorial schedule

Assemble all of this into an editorial schedule

Channel / Frequency

Website (ASAP)

Email(Weekly)

Facebook(ASAP)

Twitter(ASAP)q y ( ) ( y) ( ) ( )


Production scheduleStories about our

Stories about other people’s

Interviews with newsmakers

News about your

News about companiesour

workpeople s work

newsmakers your area

companies in your area

Frequency 1x2 2x1 week 1x2 weeks 3x1 2x4 weeksFrequency 1x2weeks

2x1 week 1x2 weeks 3x1 week

2x4 weeks

Length 500 words

20 words ea. 500 words 30words

500 words ea.

ea.


Items 7 and 87. Come up with the list of content vehicles you are going

to use.8. Create an editorial schedule and start writing!8. Create an editorial schedule and start writing!


3 fundraising metricsgDonations: How often do they give you money?

This gives you an overall picture of giving during a given time periodThis gives you an overall picture of giving during a given time period. This metric will change depending on what you are doing in a given week.

Prospects: How often do they start the process of giving you money?This will tell you what sorts of things motivate people to give, and how different pitches create more or less motivated donors.

Abandonment: How often do they fail to finish giving you money?Your abandonment rate is also a sign of donor motivation. Paying attention to it is a useful way to learn which pitches are more or less effective.


Setting up your spreadsheetg yWeek ending

Unique visitors

Emails sent

Prospects Donations Abandon Notes

8/23/10 5,632 2,500 112 65 41.9% Oprah!


Digging furthergg gIf you setup your thank you pages as “Goals” in Google Analytics, you can see sources of donations with a custom Google Analytics report. It’s helpful to see if people are finding you and giving after following a link from elsewhere.*

The “Traffic Sources” report in Google Analytics will tell you who is sending you web visitors. It can be both helpful and frustrating!


Items 9 and 10

9 Setup your spreadsheet to track data on a weekly basis9. Setup your spreadsheet to track data on a weekly basis. Configure Google Analytics to track goals and give you a report on the sources of them.

10.Look at the data every week and ask yourself and your colleagues:• What did we do this week that changed our numbers?• Is it repeatable?Is it repeatable?• What about what I wrote was more or less effective


70.00%

Turn prospective donors into donors

50.00%

60.00%

40.00%

20.00%

30.00%

10.00%

0.00%8/1/2010 9/1/2010 10/1/2010 11/1/2010 12/1/2010 1/1/2011 2/1/2011 3/1/2011 4/1/2011 5/1/2011 6/1/2011 7/1/2011


Value/Cost of XValue of site visitor aggregate $ / unique visitorsValue of prospects aggregate $ / total prospectsValue of gift (also avg gift) aggregate $ / total giftsValue of gift (also avg. gift) aggregate $ / total gifts

How are these metrics useful?• Benchmarking Google Grants• Deciding whether to pursue paid media• Cost per head of email acquisition


Sources of donationsIf you’ve setup your donation form analytics correctly (not easy!), it shows where someone came from who gave you a gift.

Particularly useful for website source.

Also provides data such as:• Link traffic• Search traffic (paid and organic)• “direct” traffic


People who link to youyPeople who link to you help you (while you sleep!). Those links:

• Send you valuable traffic• Juice your search engine rankings• Provide free publicity

Google has already researched all the links to your site and cataloged them for download in the Google Webmaster tool All you have to do is verify your sitedownload in the Google Webmaster tool. All you have to do is verify your site with Google webmaster.

It doesn’t provide contact information, so you’ll still have to reach out to those b i if b ild li f i (A d h ld!)websites if you want to build a press list out of it. (And you should!)


Questions / Free E-books

The Seven Deadly Sins of Nonprofit Web RedesignThe Seven Deadly Sins of Nonprofit Web RedesignShabbir Imber Safdar / December 2010

3 Fundraising Metrics For Your Nonprofit WebsiteShabbir Imber Safdar / October 2009

Is Your Nonprofit Facebook Page Worth It?Shabbir Imber Safdar / Shayna Englin / April 2010
