Mobile giving in Nonprofits
Insights on mobile giving from the Charitable Giving Report 2021 by Blackbaud
Livemint recently reported that UPI transactions have more than doubled in a year to 2.7 bn, despite having technical glitches.
Transaction volumes over the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) more than doubled over a year, touching 2.73 billion in March 2021 compared to 1.25 billion a year ago. As the pandemic set in and consumers started opting for digital payments, UPI transactions grew in double digits through the lockdown months.
Last Saturday was an eventful day in my life - I did a 51KM ride on my cycle with temperatures soaring between 34-35 degrees. Moving time was 2:52 and average speed 17 Km/hr. Not great numbers to show off but I can always do here ;)
I took the Tumkur highway. Halfway through my ride I was convinced that I might not return home on my two legs. Indian service roads are death pit. From the front, you will find trucks driving at you as if you are on the wrong side, from behind buses will keep honking as if they are the only ones paying the road taxes and bikers think the service road is the Buddh International Circuit.
But the best part was that I was out of the city and I had three pit stops to refuel myself with fresh sugarcane juice. Not only the juice was refreshing to battle the heat; by default, everyone had a UPI/Google Pay/Phone Pay scanner pasted on their shop. These are shops that might not even do a business of Rs200/- in a day but digital payments have become a norm.
I met a lady who was selling soda nimbu panni on the highway. She told me how everyone asks for digital payments. She was not ready initially but now she has got one.
Off late I have travelled the outskirts of Bengaluru on my cycle and everyone has a similar story. One might say that the COVID-19 forced us to adopt digital and while there are reports that cash still sells but digital has been adopted. Not just for entertainment but for commerce too.
I am happy to use my mobile then carry my wallet.
Mobile ad spends skyrocket in 2020
The same behaviour was highlighted in the Dentsu Digital Advertising in India 2021 report: “In 2020 75% (Rs. 11,836 crores) of digital media, spending is made on mobile devices. Spends on mobile has increased by 84% compared to 2019.”
In 2019 the ad budgets on TV(53%) and Mobile(47%) were equally divided but the extended lockdown, work from home, and obviously cheap data helped the ad spends skyrocket in 2020.
No surprises that online video contributes the highest proportion to the digital media ad spend on the mobile device (29%, Rs.3,458 crores) compared to desktop (23%, Rs. 908 crores). Spends on the desktop are led by social media at 30% (Rs. 1,167 crores), followed by search (28%, Rs. 1,120 crores) and online videos.
Going further the report estimated:
“By the end of 2022, 77% of all digital media spends will be made on mobile devices.”
Mobile giving in Nonprofits
The Blackbaud Institute has measured the growth in online donations made on mobile devices for many years now.
“In 2020, an estimated 28% of online donations were made using mobile devices. This has grown steadily since 2014 when it was just 9% of online donations.”
The above data is from the recently released Charitable Giving Report 2021 - “In 2020, charitable giving in the United States grew by 2% based on a careful analysis of $40.7 billion in donations by the Blackbaud Institute. Additionally, an analysis of $3.2 billion in online donations tells us that online giving grew by 20.7% compared to 2019.”
“Overall giving in 2020 grew 2.0% on a year-over-year basis for the 8,833 nonprofit organizations in the analysis.”
The above data won’t shock you. All the more you would be wondering why am I wasting your time talking about mobile giving. Because mobile giving will happen when we marketers look at mobile as a different device.
The mobile experience isn’t about customizing the desktop for a six-inch device. Both mobile and web are two different devices and both provide a completely different experience. Gone are the days when you can chill by saying -
“We have a mobile optimised site. It won’t work. The present demands that we have mobile-only thinking.”
This starts from how the home page of the website is displayed on mobile. For example, you don’t want to have a slider and screw the mobile experience for a consumer who is not using a high-end device or having a bad network. Or auto-load videos on the home page because you think it is very cool.
Speed is very crucial on mobile and Google is taking it seriously. I have discussed this in my earlier post - How to keep Google Search happy in 2021
Your donation page not only should be mobile optimised but should have mobile-first thinking.
For example, you should only have those things that are very much required. Start from the categories. On the web, you can display many categories but on mobile, just have the required ones. A donation dialogue box should be created thinking mobile-first. Wikipedia India did a great job on the donation page for mobile.
Your Emails not only should be mobile friendly but the links that you are driving them to should also be mobile-first. Don’t land them on pages that take them to Mars.
Finally, test everything on mobile-first. From start to the end that is the completion of the payment process and then the thank you note. Everything should be tested for mobile-only as we do for desktop only.
Please don’t think I am not saying desktop is not important. Just that don’t treat mobile as an adopted child of the desktop.