You’ve probably heard it before, but it bears repeating:  83 percent of all non-governmental dollars raised in the nonprofit sector come from individuals.  Foundations and corporations do not provide the majority of support for the work of the social sector, individual donors do.

Each year, the Giving USA Foundation publishes it’s excellent analysis of charitable giving to nonprofits by corporations, foundations, individuals and estates.  For years now, the percent of dollars raised from individuals plus the percent of dollars raised from estates (which were, of course, accumulated by individuals) has hovered between 82 and 83 percent.

Here are the figures for 2009 :

Source: Giving USA 2010

In spite of these numbers, many nonprofits continue to generate 60 to 90 percent of their revenue from government, foundation and corporate support.  This is especially true of small and mid-size nonprofits, defined here as organizations with budgets of less than $10 million.

The current economic crisis has resulted in deep cuts in government funding.  Giving USA 2010  reports that foundation grantmaking fell by 8.9% in 2010.  Corporate giving rose by 5.5% while individual giving remained flat.

Nonetheless, many of my nonprofit clients continue to focus the majority of their fundraising time and budget on securing foundation and government support.

With a new fiscal year starting, I have a modest proposal.  Let’s focus most of our fundraising attention on increasing and sustaining our individual donor bases.  Don’t give up your efforts to pursue government and foundation funding, but move individual donor work to the front burner. 

The research continues to “show us the money.”  Nonprofits that want to sustain their work and survive the economic downturn need to pay attention to this research and craft revenue plans that prioritize developing strong individual donor systems and strategies.  Make sure your fundraising plans include strategies for each of the stages of individual donor development:

Whatever you do, don’t skip the first and critical step: planning.  Nonprofits with limited development staff often put individual donor work last because this work seems to come with few externally imposed deadlines and requirements.   There are no  proposal or reporting deadlines.  But there are deadlines that need to be set internally:

• When will you send a direct mail piece? 
• When will you send an e-mail solicitation? 
• When will you write each of these pieces? 
• When will you send donors an update of the impact their contributions are making? 

If you put each of these deadlines on your work-plan, you will begin to see the need to plan time for individual donor work instead of rushing to write that solicitation at the eleventh hour.

In drafting your annual work-plan, put aside staff  time regularly — once a week, twice a month — to gather names of prospective donors and conduct research into the giving habits and interest of existing donors. 

Schedule time to plan for your next moves with different segments of your donor base.  For example, how will you keep in contact with new supporters who attended an event?  When will you ask them for a gift beyond the price of attending the event?  If you have a group of donors who have been giving larger gifts via your direct mail campaign(s), research their potential for major giving and create strategies to cultivate and then ask them for a major gift.

See this earlier post  for more about development planning.

And come back and visit over the next few weeks as I’ll be posting pieces regarding research, cultivation, and stewardship of individual donors and a piece on staffing your individual donor program.

Does your nonprofit put individual donors first?  Please share how you do below.

An Introduction from Laura (Kaufman):

With this post, I am pleased to welcome my first guest blogger, Laura Rhodes the founder of  Third Sector Consulting Group, which offers services to charities and charitable givers.  

It seems absolutely appropriate that Laura provide my first guest post.  Laura has 15 years experience working with nonprofits, foundations and corporate social responsibility programs.  In addition to Laura’s willingness to share her deep experience with my readers, I am excited to introduce you to her because we began our networking online.  Laura and I met via Twitter and continued the conversation offline.  Our story demonstrates yet again what powerful tools online channels provide for finding others with similar interests and focus.  Nonprofits take note:  Are you using social media to make connections with interested potential supporters?

 Laura’s post below challenges donors to think of the many different ways their generosity can have an impact.  Enjoy, and be sure to leave us your thoughts in the comments.

Last week, three schools announced major gifts:  $35 million to Dartmouth College, $40 million to St. Joseph’s College and $60 million to Washington University.  The gifts to St. Joseph’s and Washington are the largest gifts in the schools’ histories.

Just two months ago, Baylor University announced a $200 million bequest from a Baylor graduate.  Not only is the gift the largest in the university’s history, it ranks among the top 20 private gifts ever made to higher education in the U.S.

These donors are all to be commended for such extreme generosity and for supporting higher education.  At the same time, one can’t help but imagine the impact of these gifts if they were allocated differently.

Imagine, for instance, the impact of 200 $1-million endowments.  A $1-million endowment should conservatively produce a 4% annual return.  How many direct appeals, campaign letters and fundraising events does it take for a small organization to net $40,000 each year? 

This is not to suggest that the Baylor donor should have made 200 million-dollar gifts instead of a single one.  In fact, philanthropic advisors will tell you that donors should focus their giving and not dilute their impact by giving to too many causes and organizations. 

However, if a donor has the capacity to make one or more large contributions, establishing an endowment would be a great way to provide a lasting gift to one or more small nonprofits.

Another giving method that is gaining momentum is what the New York Times simply called a “fat cash prize.”   The concept is that a philanthropist can bring attention to ‘their’ cause by offering large cash awards, either for past achievement or to encourage others to work on causes that are important to the donor.  According to McKinsey & Company, prize money from philanthropists has increased over the last decade from $100,000 to $375 million per year. 

There are many approaches to philanthropy.  Professional advisors will call it by different names:  thoughtful giving, inspired charity, informed giving. 

Personally, I like “strategic giving.”  I think charity should be more than simply writing a check.    

I also think all giving is good, regardless of the amount you have to give or your method of giving.  My hope is that all donors will become strategic givers and always ask themselves, “Can I ‘do good’ even better?”

With the economic downturn, raising money from foundations has gotten even more difficult and nonprofits need every competitive advantage to succeed. 

So, what is the key to successful foundation fundraising?  The same element that is central to all winning fundraising:  building effective relationships with your donors.

Here is a list of 5 tips for building effective relationships with grantmakers:

1)      Program Officers are people too.  You may think Program Officers are merely gatekeepers deciding whether your proposal ever sees the light of day beyond their desk.  It seems obvious, but still bears saying.  Program Officers are people, and like any group of people, some will be helpful, others unapproachable.

Some other elements of the grantmakers’ perspective to consider:

• They have their own set of internal stakeholders to whom they are responsible.
•  They have only so much leeway in stretching foundation guidelines & requirements.
•   They may feel like they are constantly being pitched and are only liked because they have access to money.
•  They are routinely swamped with e-mails, voice mails,  piles of reading and many meetings.

2)   Seek mission compatability:  When approaching individual donors you target those who will find your nonprofit’s work most compelling.  The same strategy should be applied to your foundation prospects.  Do not simply chase money because it is being granted.  Plan your foundation strategy and target those grantmakers whose funding priorities match best with your programs and services.

Partners in Effective Philanthropy

3)   Plan your foundation fund raising.  Create a Foundation Funding Calendar and submit proposals based on when funding is awarded and when you need it for your program.  If a proposal is funded, add its reporting deadlines to your foundation calendar.  Regularly set aside time ( several hours each week or every other week)  to research and add new foundation prospects.  For more about fundraising planning, see this earlier post.

4)   Write a strong proposal:

• Follow Directions.
• Use the active voice.
• Write clearly & simply. 
• Be specific, but brief.
• Do not use jargon.
• Include all information requested by the funder.
• Proofread.  No spelling/grammar errors.
• Format it so it is easy to read. Break up text with headings and bullets.  Use short paragraphs.
• Remember, you are telling the “story” of your nonprofit.  Show why your work matters and clearly demonstrate the need for your organization.
• Submit a budget that makes sense and is mathematically correct.
• Present a clear program plan that is realistic and appropriate for the issue being addressed.

5)   Work to build long term relationships with grantmakers.  Use the same practices of stewardship that you use with your individual donors:

• Give grantmakers the recognition they prefer.  Some want to be anonymous, some want to be mentioned in publicity. 
• When a grant is awarded, call or e-mail the funder to say “thank you” and then immediately follow-up with a formal, written thank you letter. 
• Make sure to file needed grant paperwork and reports on time.   
• Keep funders informed about the progress of the project.
• Work to cultivate receptive grantmakers as advocates of your nonprofit’s work.
• “No” may just be the first step to “yes.”  If a proposal is rejected, speak with the Program Officer and ask if you should re-submit the next time.  Sometimes it takes two or three attempts before securing funds.

For a list of resources related to grantmaking, see Partners in Effective Philantropy.

What other tips would you share with nonprofit grantseekers?

There’s a great new resource available for nonprofits hoping to sharpen their social media “chops.”   Janet Fouts and Beth Kanter have just released #SOCIALMEDIA NONPROFIT tweet Book01: 140 Bite-Sized Ideas for Nonprofit Social Media Engagement.

The book provides guidance, all in 140 character entries, for how nonprofits can get the most out of social media. 

The book is itself a product of social media.  Janet Fouts and Beth Kanter crowdsourced ideas on Twitter and their blogs.  A group of 30 social media and nonprofit experts contributed to the book.  I am honored to be among those who contributed.

The book includes the following sections:

Section 1: What Can Social Media Do For MY Organization?
Section 2: How Can I Convince Naysayers?
Section 3: How Do We Measure Social Media Engagement?
Section 4: Twitter Best Practices
Section 5: Facebook Best Practices
Section 6: Forums and Groups
Section 7: Managing Volunteers
Section 8: Creating Evangelists
Section 9: Fundraising
Section 10: Social Media Efficiency

It’s a great resource, and even better, all profits from the book will be donated to the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN).  Get your copy here.

Photo courtesy Photos8.com

I admit it.  The headline for this post is a tease used to get your attention.

The secret to raising money through social networking is that there is, of course, no secret.

Like offline fundraising, successful social media fundraising requires relationship – building, the development of a community of supporters.  Fundraising is hard work.  It is incredibly rewarding work, but work nonetheless. 

Attracted by what appear to be the lower costs and ease of access to new supporters offered by social media, many nonprofit fundraisers are looking to online fundraising to solve all their fundraising challenges.  But just as offline fundraising takes hard work, so does development success online.

NO KISSING ON THE FIRST DATE

Those nonprofits that are succeeding at social media fundraising know that all good fundraising is rooted in building strong relationships with your donors.  First, you need to get to know potential supporters and get them excited about your nonprofit’s work.  The most successful fundraisers will tell you that “there’s no kissing on the first date.”  Build a connection with a prospect first.   Ask for money only after you have properly introduced a potential supporter to your organization.

Allison Fine makes this point in her recent post “Social Media Fundraising Lessons”  , noting that “organizations that are focused on friends first, funds second are doing better with social media.”

When you are tweeting or posting to Facebook, don’t ask fans and followers to give to you or ask others to give if you haven’t first tried to build a connection with them around your mission.  People are following your organization because they care about the issue or cause you are addressing.  Use social media to share information about your nonprofit’s work.  Engage with your followers and fans, ask for their opinions, cater to their shared interest in your mission, and then ask them to spread the word. 

ALL FOLLOWERS & FANS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL 

 In a recent post at Community Organizer 2.0 , Debra Askanase argues that social media fundraising “comes down to a combination of social media basics plus community organizing principles.”  

Community organizing generally involves some form of power analysis.  Organizers determine who in the community has the power to implement (or block) a community’s agenda.  Debra points to power analysis as a key community organizing principle to apply to online fundraising.

For success in online fundraising, a nonprofit needs to analyze the power and influence of its fans/followers.  The  2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study conducted by M&R Strategic Services and NTEN, found that the the top 7 percent of online action takers accounted for a full 31 percent of all online actions taken, and 39 percent of the activists were responsible for 71 percent of all actions. 

Those nonprofits that understand which of their followers are super-activists, which are inactive and which fall somewhere in between will be able to craft outreach strategies designed to work best with each group of fans.  The 2009 eNonprofits Benchmark study notes that “successful programs work to ensure that super-activists continue to be satisfied, while simultaneously cultivating less active subscribers to increase their activism.”

PLAN, PLAN, PLAN 

Finally, successful social media fundraising requires good planning.  I wrote about the importance of fundraising planning in general here.  Don’t just set up shop on a social media channel and start posting content and asking for support.  First, think about the following planning questions:

What is your goal for using social media to fundraise?

Which online channels do the organization’s target audiences use most regularly?

What is your timeframe for the online campaign?  Never-ending fundraising may exhaust and chase away online supporters. 

What content  do you plan to share?  Can your supporters easily share your content with their followers? Do you make a clear and compelling case that giving to your organization will connect donors to the impact they hope to have on a cause important to them?

 Online fundraising may ultimately save time and money compared with some offline fundraising, but that does not mean that it requires no work.  No matter where it takes place — online or off — fundraising is hard work. 

All of us who work in the nonprofit sector are trying to do too much with too little — too little money and too little time.

When I started in the sector 26 years ago, we networked and learned from other nonprofit colleagues.  However, we did not have the easy access to peers and quality information that social networking and the web now provide.

It is great to be able to Google almost any question about nonprofit management or about our particular issue and find pages of links to the latest research and advice.  Social networking provides endless opportunities to connect with and learn from like-minded colleagues on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and more.

But what’s a busy non-profit professional to do?  Overwhelmed with what is already on our plate, where can we find the time to keep up with the wealth of information available about philanthropy, fundraising, organizing, advocacy and social change?  You can’t do it all, but here are six Nonprofit blogs that I  read regularly.  Each helps me to keep up with different parts of the nonprofit world.  This list is by no means exhaustive.  There are many other quality nonprofit bloggers out there.  These are simply provided as a starting point:

1. Give & Take:       This is a summary page for all the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s blogs.  The page also includes links to other nonprofit bloggers around the web.  I find I get a good sense of “breaking news” in the nonprofit world by checking this site several times per week.
2. Joanne’s Nonprofits Blog:  Joanne Fritz’ blog is another resource for  all things nonprofit.  This blog will keep you up-to-date on many different aspects of the nonprofit sector.  Joanne always includes plenty of links to related blogs and generously quotes other bloggers, so you will find your way to lots of new sites by starting with Joanne’s. 
3. NTEN Blog:  This is the blog of the Nonprofit Technology Network and the place I turn for all things nonprofit tech.
4. Pamela’s Grantwriting Blog:   If your nonprofit has a small development staff, be sure to visit this site.  Pamela Grow  shares concrete and common sense tips and helps you to establish systems that are scaled to the small development shop.  Pamela’s phone interviews (followed by transcripts of the conversations on her blog) will give you the chance to learn from many of today’s leading fundraising and marketing professionals.
5.  Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog:  Kivi Leroux Miller describes her blog as the place for “do-it-yourself nonprofit communications and marketing.”  This  site is chock full of great information on how to position, brand and market your nonprofit.
6.  Beth’s Blog:  If you want to keep up with what’s happening with nonprofits and social media, this is the place to start.  I read Beth’s Blog everyday and feel as if I have just attended a social media training.  Beth’s posts are packed with lessons she has learned during her years of training nonprofits on social media.  However, this site provides much more than just ”how to do” social media.  Beth is a leader in creating new approaches for nonprofit use of  social media, and she generously shares her learning curve with her readers.        

Which nonprofit bloggers would you include on your list?  Please share your favorites in the comments below.

I have worked in many small development offices, defined here as staff of three or less, and the majority of my consulting clients have small shops.

In my experience, it is the rare small shop that regularly draws up annual development plans. While they have fundraising goals and fundraising calendars, few small shop development directors annually assess their nonprofit’s fundraising systems, resources and past strategies and then chart a course for the new year.  

The small shop development directors I know say that they are overworked and understaffed and cannot find the time to pull an annual plan together.

I know there is always too much to do, but if your nonprofit is going to be successful, you cannot afford to skip the annual development planning process.  In fact, you might currently be wasting precious staff and volunteer time and budget pursuing funding strategies that do not work.  Creating a plan helps you to focus the majority of your efforts on the fundraising strategies that have the most potential to sustain your nonprofit.

Annual fundraising plans are a key element of successful small shops in the best of times.  In economically shaky times such as these, plans are even more important.  Has your nonprofit lost government or foundation funding over the past year?  How will you work to replace this money?  What do you think will be your best funding sources this coming year? The focus required to create a plan will help you to answer these questions. 

Many nonprofits are about to start a new fiscal year on July 1, so March and April are good times to consider how this year’s fundraising efforts have gone, and plan accordingly for next year.

Here are some key questions to consider:

1.    Your Donors: 

• Who are your current donors? 
•  What strategies are you using to cultivate and keep current donors, upgrade gifts where possible and recruit new donors? 

2.    Infrastructure:  

• Do you have an effective database? 
• Do you need additional technology to take advantage of social media and online giving?
• Do you have systems in place for regularly communicating with donors, sending timely thank you notes,  and following up on new leads?

3.    People: 

• Do you have an active Fundraising Committee?  Is this committee provided with adequate training and staff support?
• What is your development staffing plan, and is it working effectively?
• Do your professional staff need additional fundraising training?
• Is your Board of Directors actively engaged in fundraising? 
• Does your Board recruitment process prioritize finding members with fundraising experience and connections?
• Does your nonprofit clearly articulate and communicate Board fundraising responsibilities to incoming as well as current Board members?

4.   Strategies:

• Which funding sources might you have to move away from given the changing economy?
• Which fundraising strategies provide the biggest “bang for your buck”?  Do you have plans to expand on these successful strategies?  Do you have plans to drop the fundraising strategies that are not working?

5.   Communication strategies: 

• What communications vehicles might need to be added or upgraded in the coming year?  Your website?  E-mail and snail mail materials? Your newsletter?
• Do you have a plan for using social and interactive media to reach new supporters?

After considering some of these questions, you will need to prioritize.  Which of the above require attention this year?  Which should you find ways to address over several years?   These are only some of the things to consider in planning.  In future posts, I’ll talk about the Board and fundraising and the importance of having a revenue plan that includes individual donors.

Most importantly, find a way to create an annual development plan.  I know you are busy, but you cannot afford to waste the time caused by a lack of planning.  In the end, we all need to remember the saying credited to Alan Lakein, the time management expert:  “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Social Media is a hot topic in the nonprofit sector, and most non-profits know they need to use social channels to engage new and existing supporters.  But as excited as many nonprofits are about exploring social media, many also wonder:  How are we going to staff this?

I just trained 23 non-profit representatives on using social media, and I was regularly asked some version of the following:  Our staff are already overworked and underpaid and we can’t afford to hire anyone else.  We know we need to participate in social media, but how are we going to manage this?

A look at some of the knowledge gained by nonprofits and small businesses already using social media, suggests at least 3 benchmarks to consider in developing staffing plans:

 1.     The 2009 Nonprofit Social Network Survey Report sponsored by NTEN, Common Knowledge and ThePort, found that 80% of the nonprofits surveyed committed 25% of a full time employee’s time to social media management.  

When developing your organization’s social media plan, you may want to focus on social networking strategies that can be accomplished in 8-10 hours of staff time per week.  It will take testing and evaluation (followed by amendment of your plans) to figure out which of your goals can be met in 8 to 10 hours a week.  But if you plan with the 8-10 hours per week baseline in mind and then actually measure the staff time you are using, you will collect hard data to use with future staff planning. 

2.  Amber Naslund offers some useful staff benchmarking tools in her ebook Social Media Time Management   

Listening — to what is said about your organization and to what is being posted about your field — can take one staff member 10-15 hours per week.

Creating Content and Engaging with Online Users can take one to three staff members one to three hours per day.

Measuring Reach can take one person five to ten hours per week.

 You can use the above guidelines to decide how much of each activity – listening, engaging, and measuring — you want to undertake and assign staff  accordingly.  Naslund does argue that if you want to be serious about social media, you need to allocate a minimum of one hour per day of staff time to start.

3.  You also don’t need to allocate the same amount of staff time each week to social media efforts.  Consider the heavier and lighter times in your organization’s social networking calendar.  For example, if you have an event coming up, you might want to commit extra staff time before the event to promote it on social channels and some extra time after to engage new followers in your ongoing work.

If you are fundraising online, consider allocating extra staff to social media management when online donating is heaviest.  In 2009, 46% of all online dollars were raised in October, November and December.  December activity accounted for 30% of total online giving.  (Source:  Joanne’s Nonprofits Blog )

You might want to spend fewer staff hours earlier in the year and pack more staff time into the last half of the year.   You could also consider hiring a consultant to provide some extra help when your social media engagement is heaviest.

These are just a few concrete ways to estimate staff time needed for different social media strategies.  If you have helpful examples from your own nonprofit’s experience, please share them in the comments section below.

iStockphoto.com

I admit it.  I was a Twitter skeptic.

I could not understand why people were spending their time following short snippets of information.  What of value, I wondered, could be communicated in 140 characters or less?

My friend and colleague, Cassandra West of New Media Access, kept encouraging me to try Twitter.  She assured me that I would be impressed by the ways in which non-profits were using the channel to build their brand, connect with supporters and find new ones.

I decided to give Twitter a try. 

After creating my username and watching an introductory tutorial, I signed on.  I didn’t start tweeting right away.  I needed to understand what topics people tended to tweet and what interested Twitter users.  I typed “nonprofits” into the search field and watched multiple discussions of my industry roll by in real time.

And then, I was lucky enough to enjoy one of those serendipitous moments that seem to occur regularly on Twitter.  Someone tweeted: “Looking for a successful youth-serving organization in Chicago.”

A check of the Tweeter’s biography showed that he was a consultant and philanthropic advisor.  I wondered if he might be representing a donor looking to make a contribution. 

I work in Chicago’s non-profit community and knew which organization I would recommend. But, I had never tweeted before and wasn’t really sure if I should weigh in.  After a few minutes, I realized that I had nothing to lose and a great non-profit might just have a lot to gain.

Counting each and every stroke, I tweeted: “I recommend the Mikva Challenge in Chicago – very innovative, very effective.”  

And the outcome of that first tweet?  The consultant ended up meeting with the Mikva Challenge and they were connected with a new donor who made a $5,000 gift. 

Now I can’t claim direct credit for that $5,000.  The consultant may have done other research and heard from other tweeters, and certainly, the Mikva Challenge does impressive work on behalf of kids and presents their cause quite well.  But having me, a supporter with 25 years experience running nonprofits and foundations, tweeting positively on their behalf might have served as one more positive recommendation.

The skeptics say that Twitter is not a good fundraising vehicle, but I’ve been on Twitter for several months now and there is definitely some successful fund raising happening. 

More importantly, Twitter gives your nonprofit access to whole new circles of supporters.  So even if Twitter doesn’t yield immediate fund raising results, you should be increasing your relationship–building, which is still the basic ingredient for successful fund raising.

What about your nonprofit?  Have you benefited from Twitter’s serendipity or have you used careful planning and hard work to find Twitter fundraising success?  Or maybe you are still waiting for results?  Please share your story in the comments.

@iStockphoto.com/DNY59

 There is nothing scientific about this post.  No studies were conducted, no metrics gathered.

 I am simply sharing observations based on the experience of one donor:   me.

This year, I did my year-end giving either partly or entirely on-line.  I gave to multiple non-profits.  They included local, national and international organizations.  Some gifts were to grassroots projects and others to large, well-resourced non-profits.  I used organization websites, and if I was less familiar with an organization, I checked their ratings on Charity Navigator — http://www.charitynavigator.org/ 

More and more non-profits are using Web 2.0 to promote their cause and attract donors.  However, simply establishing a website, Facebook page or tweeting is not enough.  Non-profits need to keep their web presence current.  If attracting supporters is a key goal of an organization’s web strategy, then each web location should be as donor-friendly as possible.

Most non-profits are already stretched to the limit personnel and time-wise.  So what is a busy and overburdened non-profit professional to do? 

If your organization does not have a clear social media strategy, this would be a good place to start.  It’s a new year.  Plan to spend some time setting realistic goals for how you will use social media this year, and then secure the resources (people, time, quality content) to do this well.

Good planning takes time.  But my experience reminded me that there are several simple (and often free or low-cost) steps that non-profits can take to make a prospective online donor’s experience with your organization as donor-friendly as possible.  These are the ideas that came to mind as I was donating on-line:

1.    Your website:  Has anyone in your organization ever tried to give on-line to your organization?  How would they rate the experience? Is it easy to navigate to the donation page from your home page?  Do you have a “donate now” button on each page? 

• Some of the websites I visited only linked to the donation page from their home page.  If I was on another page, I found it aggravating to navigate back to the home page to give a donation. 
• Some websites I surfed looked as if they had not been updated for years.  This may lead a donor to wonder if  your non-profit is well-run or if you are even still in business.

2.    Your donations page:

• Several organizations failed to offer me the opportunity to print the donations page and submit it — with a check — via snail mail.  Some of us still like to write checks.  We look at your website to get information about your work, and then give via the US Mail.  If you think this might apply to your donors, make it easy for them to do so.
• There was large variation in suggested giving levels, even for non-profits of similar size and budget.  Some sites listed $100 as the top gift choice and then added an “other” check box.  Other sites listed their top gift as $500 or even $1,000.  One site did not list any suggested amounts at all.  How did you arrive at the suggested gift amounts posted on your donations page?  Are these amounts based on analysis of your average gift size on-line and on strategies to increase your average gift size?  Have you ever tested other ways of listing donation levels to see if they increase the size of your average on-line gift?

3.    Organization Contact Information:  Is your organization’s address on your donations page?  Is it easy to find?  Several times I wanted to check an organization’s website, download a donation form and give offline.  But, I often had trouble locating the organization’s mailing address and had to search out “contact Us” pages and navigate away from the donations page. 

Donors expect on-line giving or even on-line research of organizations to be easy. If I were a little less determined, I might have given up at several of the sites I visited and donated to another organization. Is your website as easy and donor-friendly as it can be?  

There are certainly other easy fixes non-profits can apply to their online giving system, but this list provides a good starting point.  What are some of your ideas?