The State of Modern Philanthropy 2021
Insights on mobile conversion, recurring giving and supporter experience from Classy’s latest report for future-proofing fundraising
“Campaigns that leverage donation matching raises 3 to 5 times more money than those that do not.”
According to the latest report - The State of Modern Philanthropy 2021 by Classy donation matching proved a powerful strategy for campaigns throughout 2020.
While many might think they need a corporate partner to host a match, organizations can also simply structure one large gift or a group of gifts as a match challenge to create a greater sense of urgency for donors and encourage them to stretch their impact. Supporters will be more likely to take action and may even increase the amount of their contribution when they know their dollar will go further.
The insights in this report are garnered from 2020 Classy platform data. This reflects over 4,800 organizations, 46,000 active campaigns, and $1 billion raised from over 9.4 million donations—of which, nearly 4 million were recurring gifts.
Mobile, social traffic and conversion rates
Online giving has been on the rise for years, but the events of 2020 accelerated its growth. Online fundraising campaigns and virtual events enable organizations to increase their reach and dollars raised when thoughtfully executed.
But at the same time, it is also important to note where your supporters are arriving from when they land on your campaign pages.
The report states that a greater percentage of traffic comes from mobile devices than desktop (58% vs. 42%, respectively)—especially traffic coming from social media—so your website and campaigns must be mobile-optimized to capture these potential donations.
Not just mobile optimised but your website should have mobile-first thinking.
Classy’s Modern Philanthropy report 2020 shared that 60% of traffic on Classy comes from mobile and of that 50% comes from social media platforms. Keeping a close eye on traffic referral sources is one way to better understand where your supporters spend their time online.
Even the recently published Charitable Giving Report 2021 by Blackbaud highlighted the growing trend on mobile giving in Nonprofit organizations. “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.”
“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.”
Recurring giving
Of organizations that raise more than $50 million online annually, the percent of total revenue from recurring gifts increased by 10% year over year from 2019.
The report states that the recurring donation volume across the platform is constantly climbing and has seen remarkable growth year over year from 2019 to 2020.
“There is a slight increase in the rate of recurring growth during the end of the year, which falls in line with the general increase we see in giving during the holiday season.”
2020 - the beginning of the pandemic meant a great interest shown towards health organizations. “Health organizations had the largest percentage of recurring donors (25%) across cause categories.”
The report says: “Health organizations often activate individuals with personal experiences with their organizations, and your nonprofit can similarly seek to create meaningful moments for your supporters and steward them to become recurring donors.
“Consider creating a special experience, such as an event or volunteering opportunity, that serves as a foundational touchpoint and then design an engagement experience from there that prompts them to join an exclusive, branded recurring giving program.”
Supporter Experience
Online fundraising is primarily about the donor or consumer experience. And this experience is also one of the strong deciding factors of retention. In the earlier paragraph, we discussed recurring gifting. Classy in its report talks about how to retain the recurring givers:
Factors like payment processing and offering flexible recurring giving options play a big role.
Expiring credit card information is a common cause of churn. Make sure your organization regularly reviews credit card data for your recurring donors so you can reach out ahead of time and prompt them to update their credit card information.
While recurring gifts are often monthly, organizations with more sophisticated sustainer programs know that offering a variety of giving options can make donors’ budgeting more manageable and align with your cause’s needs.
Donation Matching is another powerful way to influence donor behaviour and maximize acquisition and conversion. “We found that campaigns that enable donation matching on Classy raise 3 to 5 times more money than those that do not.”
Page Load Time is already playing a big role in supporter experience. Last year Classy informed on Campaign Pages, 70% of visitors take action—either bouncing or converting—within the first minute and convert at 11%.
However, conversion rates climb significantly when time spent increases, peaking at the 4 to a 5-minute window.
But when it comes to Donation Pages Classy states that 60% of people who make a donation, do so in less than one minute. These findings point to the highly optimized nature of these forms and that people landing on these pages have already made the decision to donate.
Along with page speed, Google is now giving more importance to its latest update about Core Web Vitals. Get your website ready for Google’s Core Web Vitals.
Ideally whenever there is something related to the future I generate cold feet. Thankfully Classy with its latest report isn’t trying to predict the future even though the subject is future-proofing fundraising.
Online fundraising is the cornerstone of a diversified strategy that helps you both safeguard and scale your organization. Nonprofits that offer supporters multiple ways to engage—be it through different online campaign types or flexible payment options—and who prioritize nurturing these relationships will see continued success in the years to come.
That’s why for The State of Modern Philanthropy 2021, we’ve focused on the subject of future-proofing your fundraising. We don’t pretend to know what the future holds, but with the right planning, we can continue to design solutions that that will keep your nonprofit mission moving forward.