The NonProfit Times - December 15, 2008 - (Page 18) Limited ‘Face’Time Originally published 7/15/08 Most donors on Facebook go unthanked by charities BY MARK HRYWNA T echnology is fast. At any second a GPS unit can track your location and text messages can be sent between continents. Emails packed with data can be received within minutes, if not seconds. So what takes so long for nonprofits to acknowledge an online donation through the Causes application on Facebook? The answers vary, but in most cases, nonprofits are only just starting to develop strategies for how to handle Causes donations via Facebook, others are beginning to direct some resources to it, and still others have yet to realize they’re receiving donations. On May 1, The NonProfit Times made $25 contributions to 10 different Causes on Facebook, selecting the top five Causes (based on number of members) as well as five national organizations in a range of categories. While an immediate generic notification is sent by email to the donor from Network For Good, which processes donations for a cut of 4.75 percent, none of the nonprofits corresponded directly, by email or regular mail, at presstime, some six weeks after the donation. For many nonprofits, they’ve only just begun to catch up to Causes, which was launched in May 2007 by Project Agape. The Berkeley, Calif.-based start-up firm touted more than $2.5 million in donations in its first full year for nearly 20,000 different registered nonprofits, with more than 12 million Facebook users among 80,000 “Causes.” More important than the money raised, say supporters of Causes, is the engagement of Facebook users with the organization. The social networking site first was available only on college campuses, but has seen the average age of a user reach 35. Even some of the largest national organizations have only received a dozen or more donations via Causes and many said they were developing strategies in the coming months. Nonprofits generally respond to donations made on their Web Site or by mail within several days or weeks,but some either were unaware they were even getting donations via Causes or haven’t yet focused resources on Facebook. “No one should be throwing out their postage meter and entirely relying on online fundraising or on friend-to-friend fundraising, but it’s an important piece of the picture and it’s an increasingly big piece of the picture,” said Katya Andresen, vice president of marketing for Bethesda, Md.-based Network For Good. “It’s a new tool in the hands of thousands of people,”Andresen said.“You can’t replace all fundraising but it’s worth cultivating.” Groups might not see a huge return, but a lot of people might become acquainted with the cause and end up do- nating to it in the future. Though he wouldn’t call Causes a passing fad,“it’s a fad that hasn’t really caught fire yet,” said Rick Christ, a managing partner with NPadvisors.com in Warrenton, Va. Very few Causes have raised $10,000 but many more have raised smaller amounts, he added. Although fundraising on Causes is peanuts for most nonprofits right now,“clearly, this is the front end of a wave,” said Christ, calling it one of the key trends in online fundraising. Nonprofits will see more advocacy online and more contributions online elsewhere on the Web in the future, rather than on their own sites, Christ said. More people are going to do more things on their own, whether through social networking sites, or other places like Second Life or eBay. “Nonprofits need to be aware of the whole Internet, not only their own site,” said Christ, who tells nonprofits that at any given moment, there are more people passionate about their cause not on their Web site than on their site. Nonprofits can either try to generate as much traffic as Facebook or go where the traffic is and “empower people to do more where they are,” he said, and right now, that’s Facebook.“When you dominate a market, you need to go to that domination and be part of that action because the niches within Facebook are bigger than the other markets that are out there. Facebook is just today, it might not be tomorrow, MySpace is yesterday’s thing,” Christ said. “It’s possible that some of your charities don’t know about the gift yet. It’s not a knock, it is however, a built-in flaw in the process,” Christ said, and something that time will probably resolve. Since anyone can create a Causes section regardless of whether they work for the nonprofit, it’s usually a volunteer or supporter who starts it without having access to the nonprofit profile, and hence to donor contact information, according to Randall Winston, director of nonprofit relations for Causes. Being a nonprofit partner with Causes gives a nonprofit employee access to a system through which they can create a nonprofit profile and manage the Causes benefiting them, which allows them to disassociate from causes they don’t want benefiting them, thank donors, or contact creators of a cause. A critical step in the Causes process is where Network For Good asks donors if they want to share their personal information with the individual charity. A “yes” and the nonprofit can continue to communicate directly with the donor, but a “no” and the nonprofit only gets the donation (a minimum $10 and a recommended level of $25). Though he didn’t have any statistics compiled on how many donors share their information with the nonprofit,Winston estimated about 40 percent. Donors have only had the option of sharing their billing information with the individual nonprofits since February, when Network For Good took over processing donations from JustGive. Ben Tanzer, a spokesman for Chicagobased Prevent Child Abuse America, which benefited from almost $10,000 donated through the “Society Against Child Abuse” cause, said the vast majority of donations have been anonymous, estimating as much as 90 percent. Network For Good takes an administrative fee of 4.75 percent from each donation before passing it on to the nonprofit (which would make NPT’s $25 donation about $23.81 to the charity). Nonprofits are alerted immediately of a Causes donation through online donation tracking reports and the contributions are processed on or around the 15th of each month, Andresen said. However, becoming a partner does not give a nonprofit direct control over administering Causes, Winston said. They must reach out to the Cause creator and be added as an administrator, which is what the largest Cause on Facebook did.“Support the Campaign for Cancer Research” benefits Brigham and Women's Hospital, a teaching hospital of Harvard University in Boston, and has raised almost $70,000. The collaboration between the hospital and the Cause creator likely gave them a bit of a head start compared to other nonprofits. Creator Eric Ding was working at the facility and started the page to see how it might help, and continues to monitor it, said Lindsey O’Neill, development officer for the hospital’s Biomedical Research Development. She started to keep a closer eye on donations coming through Causes as early as last summer. The hospital’s average gift, based on almost $70,000 from about 2,500 donors, is roughly $28. The cause itself has more than 3.2 million members, meaning that less than 0.8 percent of the membership has made contributions. “In terms of our stewardship of a Causes donor, I have to say that currently, Face Time, page 22 No Direct Response The NonProfit Times made $25 donations to the top five organizations on the Causes section of Facebook and to five other groups on the site. None responded directly to the gifts. Here are the organizations that received the gifts and their online numbers during the past months. TOP FIVE CAUSES (by number of members) Campaign for Cancer Research (Brigham and Women's Hospital, affiliate of Harvard Medical School) Members Donations March 27 3,104,446 $60,660 May 1 3,159,328 $62,445 June 9 3,208,354 $65,765 Stop Global Warming (Alliance for Climate Protection) Members March 27 1,767,383 May 1 1,820,334 June 9 1,870,519 Donations $22,202 $22,672 $23,555 NPT’S FIVE RANDOM GIFTS Animal Rights (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) Members Donations March 27 1,298,155 $21,482 May 1 1,334,700 $22,302 June 9 1,369,483 $23,450 Society Against Child Abuse (Prevent Child Abuse America) Members March 27 992,910 May 1 1,028,634 June 9 1,063,844 Save Darfur (Save Darfur Coalition) Members March 27 838,114 May 1 861,317 June 9 882,772 American Red Cross Causes Members Donations Donors May 1 173 147,961 $7,872 163 June 9 190 153,621 $15,848 321 Habitat for Humanity International Causes Members Donations Donors May 46 5,840 $805 22 June 9 44 6,093 $855 24 America’s Second Harvest Causes Members Donations Donors May 1 18 6,111 $310 12 June 9 20 8,267 $410 13 National Public Radio Causes Members Donations Donors May 1 13 7,871 $1,185 40 June 9 13 8,300 $1,220 42 Alzheimer’s Association Causes Members Donations Donors May 1 14 3,855 $365 12 June 9 14 3,989 $415 14 Donations $9,359 $10,340 $12,430 Donations $16,353 $18,341 $19,676 DECEMBER 15, 2008 THE NONPROFIT TIMES www.nptimes.com http://www.NPadvisors.com http://www.nptimes.comwww.nptimes.com
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