Trying To Donate Through Twitter

I recently cancelled one of my €21 per month charity direct debits as I had been doing it for about 6 years and fancied a change. I decided to run an experiment on Twitter, telling my followers that I wanted to set up four €5 per month direct debits to four different charities. I asked who they should be and why.

Looking to set up 4 X €5 monthly Irish direct debit donations to 4 different charities. Any suggestions who and why??
— Total Fundraising (@TotalFR) August 3, 2012

This was from my company Twitter account with nearly 700 followers, primarily made up of charities and people working in the sector. Easy money. But surprisingly...

Nobody replied.

I understand Twitter's a busy place and so over the next few weeks I kept asking and reposting the question. Slowly but surely I found my four charities. I don't think it would be fair to criticise the charities that didn't see the offer or didn't respond, but it's interesting to see how the four charities each responded differently and the lessons we can learn...


Day 6: Charity working with vulnerable young people
I was tweeted at by an employee of this charity, rather than the official account, and it was someone that I already knew through work. It was a very clear and very concise summary of what they do. Fantastic.

I e-mailed her saying I'd be delighted to set up a direct debit, and when I mentioned that I hadn't received any other replies she said, "I thought you would've been inundated with tweets." The other interesting thing was that the link on their website to their direct debit form didn't work. It was a broken link, and at the time of writing this it still is.

Lessons learned: Never assume someone won't donate to you and make sure your donation links work.


Day 8: Health-related Charity
Again I was tweeted at by an employee, rather than the official account (maybe you guys should start paying commission?). She sent me a picture of a thank-you letter one of their young service users had written them - really sweet.

Unfortunately, the charity didn't have a direct debit facility so they needed to post me out a standing order form. I hate standing orders and I know that results suffer if you're relying on someone to physically fill out a form and post it back.

They also took the opportunity to send me posters for the office, a magazine and a sponsorship card for a run I had mentioned I was going to be taking part in just case I "haven't chosen a charity to fundraise for..." Brilliant.

Lessons learned: Get a Direct Debit facility. Or outsource it. It's important that people can become regular donors without having to physically fill in and return a form.


Day 11: Guide dog charity
This was an interesting one: I received a lovely hand-written card responding to my post along with a DD form. I received details of a great case-study and I received a standard 'ask' letter (Addressed "Dear Friend"...nooooooo!!!).

Overall, it was a great pack...but there was no interaction at all on Twitter. It seemed strange to me that the charity had chosen to change the medium with which I had chosen to communicate. I'm not necessarily saying the pack shouldn't have been posted, but I felt there should have also been some sort of engagement on Twitter.

Lessons learned: Engage your audience through the medium they choose (where possible). And if you have DD Plus facility...use it. Don't risk a potential donor not getting round to signing and returning a form when you don't have to.


Day 12: Animal Sanctuary
Gaining a good bit of momentum by now!

The fourth and final charity was one that I have a bit of a Twitter relationship with! They're one of my favourites because they post interesting, sometimes controversial, tweets. We sometimes get in to little twonversations and I've met the person who runs the account once in real life. I like them a lot, but I've never been asked for a donation and actually never seen them publicly ask for money (beyond one-off donations).

The interesting thing was that they responded to my original Day 1 tweet. Anyone on Twitter knows that a post that old should be well lost in your timeline. This leads me to believe that as a result of the banter we were having they actually went in to my own list of tweets and looked over everything I had posted in the last couple of weeks.

Also, as a result of our banter and the e-relationship we have I was delighted to become a donor...when they finally got round to asking! If they had of asked me a few weeks ago I probably would have said sorry, no, but sometimes you catch people at just the right time. That's fundraising.

Lessons learned: Ask. Ask everyone. Ask often.


I'd look to run a similar experiment again some time in the future. Until next time...


Update 16th August:
I got a call today from someone at one of my new charities. They wanted to check if my €5 was for anything in particular? I informed them no, it was a donation. 

They asked if it was a once off. I said no, it's a standing order so it's monthly.

They very nicely explained that it didn't say anything about monthly on the form so they weren't sure (Remember, this was their own donation form that they had sent me). I very nicely responded that I was pretty sure it said monthly on it, to which they replied, "Oh yes, you're right. There it is."

Still, nice to get a phone call.


Update 7th September:
I got a letter from my bank today:

The same charity that had called me to check if it was a one-off donation had sent the form to my bank to process without including their own account details. Obviously my bank couldn't process it and are now relying on me getting back to them with the charity's details.

Bear in mind this is the monthly standing order form that the charity sent me. It was all glossy and pretty. But it's not functional.

The timing is bad. We're getting work done on the house and this week we had to pack up everything we own and move out for 8 - 10 weeks. I have no idea where this letter has gone. It's safe to say the majority of the public would not keep working this hard to make a donation. Most would have given up by this point.

The Magic 100,000

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a charity CEO shouldn't earn more than €100,000 a year, despite their skills or how well the organisation performs because of them, and despite the fact that we have made this totally acceptable in the private sector and we all aspire to earn that much.

I'm not very smart. Let's assume you're right. Charity CEOs should earn less than €100k.

There's just a few questions I need to ask. A few things I'm not 100% sure of:

• What was acceptable in Punts? Anything less than £78,756? Or was the standard back then £100,000?

• How much should they earn? Is €99,999 ok? €80k? €50k? €40k? What's the cut-off? 

• CEOs should earn more than their staff, right? But some of their staff might be doctors...who earn good money. This is awkward. Should CEOs earn less than some staff? Or should the high-skilled staff also earn less than the real world because it's a charity? 

• Does the size of the charity make a difference? Some employ thousands of people. Their CEOs should still earn less than 100k, right?

• If we call it a 'Social Enterprise' can the CEO earn more than €100k? 

• If we call it a 'Business' can the CEO earn more than €100k?

Charity News Article Comments Bingo

I've developed a fascination recently with the public comments you find on-line below, or attached to, news articles about charities.

The articles themselves are sometimes quite interesting, but very often bland with no real information. But the comments that come in afterwards give a good insight to the [on-line] public's perception of the charity sector.

They're depressing to read, so I've tried to brighten things up by creating "Charity News Article Comments Bingo":

"I'll Never Donate To You Again"

It's a powerful threat, isn't it?

The thoughts of an individual telling you, a charity, that you'll never receive another cent from them is scary and one that is usually taken seriously.

But the threat has become bandied about with members of the public conveniently threatening charities with a boycott because they use chuggers, spend too much on admin, travel business class, said something wrong on Twitter, or just because of something someone said they once heard.

I call the rumours the Captain Pugwash Syndrome. Someone once claimed that the cartoon Captain Pugwash contained characters such as Master Bates, Seaman Staines and Roger The Cabin Boy. It didn't, but the people who heard the rumour passed it on as fact and the next set of people in the chain absorbed the information as absolute fact. Charities fall victim to these kind of rumours all the time.

"I'll never donate to you again."

Charities I deal with hear this threat all the time. Individuals claim they will never donate again because the charity is using the most-cost effective form of fundraising available and generating hundreds of thousands of Euro each year. The individual just happens to dislike it and the biggest defence they have at their disposal is this threat.

Personally I think they weren't going to donate again anyway. It's a convenient excuse. On more than one occassion we've discovered that the person who "will never donate again" had never donated in the first place.

But it's still scary for the charity. It's scary because most of the time they can't or won't defend themselves. It's not like the private sector where the threat to "never buy your product again" usually falls on deaf ears. Charities take it seriously...because they're nice...and genuinely consider eliminating their most cost-effective form of fundraising because one or two people said they would never donate again. It's amazing.

But you don't hear it as much in the private sector.

Why?

Well, because it's inconvenient to boycott a product or a service.

Whereas a donor won't really notice if they 'give up' a charity, they'll notice if they give up their IBM computer (because of that whole Holocaust thing), give up their iPhone (because of that whole mass-suicide thing), give up driving to work (because of that whole killing the planet thing), boycott blood diamonds (because they're blood diamonds), change their mobile phone battery (doublecheck yours...there might be traces of blood on it), give up cows' milk (but soy milk tastes funny!), etc.

No, that's too much of a hassle.

But never donating to you again? So easy. And the truth is for the majority of the public charities are interchangeable. This year's charity will be replaced next year. "I'll never donate to you again" is the petty threat that's thrown from the lifeboat back to the sinking ship. It's the recently dumped girlfriend that tells you she cheated on you anyway.

So what are you going to say to the next person that tells you they will never donate to you again?

How Much of My Donation Is Spent On Overheads (Or Why Admin Costs Are Bull***t)

How much of my donation is spent/wasted on admin/wages/overheads?


First of all I'll answer your question, and then I'll tell you why you're asking the wrong question.

For the sake of convenience I'll use the word admin to cover all wages, overheads...all that boring stuff that nobody likes to fund.

The amount of your donation that goes on admin depends on the organisation. It's usually on their website or available if you ask and it's usually about 10% or maybe 15%-20%. Some organisations will tell you 100% of your donation goes to 'the cause' and none goes on admin. What they do here is secure funding elsewhere, make out like that covers the boring stuff, and then make this pointless claim to you. Every charity has overheads. All money received is income and everything they spend on is expenditure. It's futile to say that the 20 Euro note you just gave is going to go here or there. It goes in to a bank account with all the other money.

And these figures, these percentages, are meaningless. What is admin? Whose wages are admin and whose are the cause?

The doctor performing surgery to give people their sight back...that's the cause, right? Or is it admin and wages? The person who co-ordinates these surgeries, schedules them and makes them happen...that's pure admin, right? But the cause wouldn't happen if this person didn't arrange it, so let's file it elsewhere.

The cost of transport - essential to making things happen - admin or cause? When the water charges come in...what do you want hospices to classify these as? Nurses need to wash their hands, people need to drink water. Cause or admin?

Amnesty International does the amazing work it does by raising awareness, campaigning, sending letters. Lots of printing. Lots of photocopying. It's probably all admin. But it's also probably all the cause.

All these charities have different definitions and they dress up their figures differently, fuelled by the public's demand to hear a percentage that they can judge their work by. It's meaningless and it's lazy. 100% of your donation goes to the cause every time. Whether it's spent on rehydration packs, surgery, wages, advertising or fundraising it is all the cause.

So can we stop asking it? And can charities either stop providing it or, when they do, issue a massive disclaimer on why admin costs are bullshit and start educating people on what question they should be asking.

You should be asking, "What will my donation do?"

Imagine two charities, both of which give people their sight back. One has 10% admin and one has 20% admin. Which do you donate to?

Well what if I told you the second one spends that extra admin on better doctors, which allows them to cure the blindness of more people each year. They spend more money on recruitment which allows a better calibre of staff - less quacks and less botched surgeries. Which do you donate to?

Instead of asking how much of my donation goes where, what about what is this organisation going to do? How many lives are you going to save?

I don't care how Apple or Google or Pepsi spend my money as long as I get a fantastic end product that meets or exceeds my expectations. I demand the same from my charities.

So let's change it.

If you're a charity let's start by educating the public and standing up for yourself in the media.

If you're a donor be proud of funding the wages, the admin, the overheads. They're part of the package.

To all the charities I donate to: I believe in you. I want you to spend my donation on your wages, on your toilet paper, the spatula on the new Rainbow Warrior, on your Xmas party. Whatever you feel it takes to change the world. I trust you. I know you will run your organisation to the best of your ability. Just keep me updated, and hopefully you won't have to waste any more time justifying yourself to the press and the rest of the people that don't trust you anyway.

What I Learned At The IOFNC 2012

Just unwinding after the Institute of Fundraising National Convention and I decided to key some notes up on my public blog so that not only will I always have them available, but so that you - if you were unable to attend - can get something from the IOFNC.
Why not read these while pretending you're at a conference? Why not write your name on a piece of paper and attach it to a lanyard around your neck? Say the word 'lanyard' out loud, and then lose that piece of paper briefly. Why not drink some really shitty tea and put a bunch of business cards in all of your pockets? Just start talking to a stranger. Network with your cat. Don't go outside for three days. Forget about your real life.

There were lots of iPads floating about this year and this was the first year I took notes on my mobile rather than pen and paper. Sometimes I drift in to a special place where I write down stuff that has nothing to do with what the speaker is saying.  So here we go...some of it may be nonsense...stream of consciousness...

Start Qualifying Everything
Every cost - how many donors is it worth? You're spending €150 on attending a conference? That's this month's donation from ten donors...make it worth it.
On the flip side, every fundraising campaign - what will it do? This month's door-to-door recruitment will give sight back to 750 people around the world.

Sort out Mobile
Need to speed up the accessibility of mobile giving in Ireland. JustGiving doubled conversion rates by adding a mobile donation site.
ourmobileplanet.com
SMS 'Skip' instead of 'Stop' - UNICEF using successfully.
Send an SMS ask to cancelled DDs.

"Your Board of Directors will not approve"
True words from the one-and-only AJ Leon.
Irish boards are holding back Irish charities.
trendwatching.com

"Why aren't we protecting voice?"
A beautiful, beautiful (possibly paraphrased) quote from Adrian Salmon.
Telephone fundraising and face-to-face fundraising are so, so powerful. There will always be a place for them and anyone who is investing in on-line and digital before they are investing in telephone is crazy. Ireland is full of that negligence. I can't believe how slow the uptake in telephone fundraising is in Ireland.
It works. Ask me how. (www.totalfundraising.ie)

On-line/Off-line Preference
People don't know what they want...stop asking them.
Prostate cancer mailing - the guy who said mail is dead and then goes on to fall in love with a talking walnut that got posted to him.

Updates to Staff
Weekly charity highlight, videos, messages from donors and staff and more.


It was an amazing Institute of Fundraising National Convention. As always, it was brilliant and I think I saw the best session I have ever seen at any conference. (Interestingly, I also think I saw the worst session I have ever seen). Thank you to everyone involved. (Except the worst session people).

Top-Level Domains - What Do They Mean For The Charity Sector?

A top-level domain is the last part of a web address, eg. .com or .org. These are generic ones that any organisation or individual can register. You also have country specific TLDs, such as .ie and .co.uk. And then you have a handful of other sponsored TLDs that represent a specific community, such as .mil for the U.S. military and .xxx for porn sites.

ICANN (the organisation that assigns these domains) recently opened applications for any TLDs and this week they released the list of first-wave applicants they have received. They included things like .google and .youtube from you-know-who, .catholic from the Vatican, and a bunch of people applying for common words like .home and .music.

Domain names have become like land and, because they are finite, are becoming more and more difficult to get your hands on. There are no 3-letter .com addresses available anymore. Any of you that have tried to register a domain for a specific campaign have probably found it's taken. By opening up these TLDs you are essentially creating more 'land' and it's potentially a massive money spinner. I don't know enough about it to say whether it's a good or bad thing, but at first glance it reminds me of the Celtic Tiger when everyone started building and buying apartments. That worked out fine, didn't it?

It wasn't cheap to apply, with the initial application alone costing applicants US$185,000, which is probably the main reason why there was no application for .oxfam and .amnesty, and why I decided against applying for any.

But there are a number of applications in there that are related to or may have an impact on the charity sector and I think these are worth looking at:

.charity
A private U.S. company named Donuts applied for this. Under various names they also applied for .fund, .gifts and around 300 other TLDs. Donuts are essentially a re-seller and, if they successfully register .charity then you will need to go through them to secure your new web address of www.oxfam.charity or www.concern.charity.
Donuts "intends to increase competition and consumer choice at the top level". In their own words, "The .CHARITY TLD will be of interest to the millions of persons and organizations worldwide involved in philanthropy, humanitarian outreach, and the benevolent care of those in need. This broad and diverse set includes organizations that collect and distribute funds and materials for charities, provide for individuals and groups with medical or other special needs, and raise awareness for issues and conditions that would benefit from additional resources. In addition, the term CHARITY, which connotes kindness toward others, is a means for expression for those devoted to compassion and good will. We would operate the .CHARITY TLD in the best interest of registrants who use the TLD in varied ways, and in a legitimate and secure manner."
But interestingly, on the application where it asks, "Is the application for a community-based TLD?" Donuts said 'No'.
Famous Four Media also applied for .charity and it is now up to ICANN to decide which company (if any) gets it. .ngo
The Public Internet Registry (the people that administer .org domains) applied for this. They are a not-for-profit corporation and this instills confidence in me. Maybe I'm being naive.
.heart
The American Heart Association applied for this TLD. I find this incredible that a charitable organisation can justify the hundreds of thousands of dollars it will cost to secure and maintain. I can not see any marketing benefit - people will still Google them. Their existing domain is www.heart.org. Do they really need .heart?

The only justifiable reason I can think of is as a fundraiser. If the AHA intends to re-sell .heart domains and they think they can make money from it then great.

.cancerresearch
Australian Cancer Research Foundation applied for this. Again, I don't see the point but I hope they'll show me.

The only thing I would say about this is why would you apply for .cancerresearch rather than .cancer? Nobody applied for .cancer. It seems like .cancer would be a far more awesome TLD to own.

.giving
JustGiving applied for .giving. Now I think JustGiving are incredible and rarely, if ever, put a foot wrong...but why do they need .giving? Is the cost justifiable?

My gut feeling is that this will be an add-on service for charities - charities will pay to secure the web address of oxfam.giving or barnardos.giving for their fundraising pages. By charging for this it might be worth it.

Presumably they would also look at giving fundraisers their own domain names. e.g. I could get simonscriver.giving (perhaps for a price?), but I just don't feel that's worthwhile. My own personal feeling is that people donate through these on-line portals via a link or a search from the homepage. They don't type in www.sponsor.ie/siscri - they either click that link or go to www.sponsor.ie and search for me.

Or perhaps they're looking to bring their international sites to one space. But wouldn't their existing justgiving.com be the logical place to do this?

I'm really interested to see what they're going to do with this if their application is successful.

Missing Domains
Nobody applied for .give, .sponsor or .donate.

So...
These applications will be processed over the next year with interested parties invited to contact ICANN with their thoughts.

From a charity point of view we have to hope that an influx of possible domains will drive down the cost of registering new sites. But if you're a charity and you're reading this I'm willing to bet you already have a domain name that you've been working on publicising and you're not about to go and change your main website.

Where it will come in handy is for micro-sites - dedicated sites for specific campaigns. Suddenly there will be a lot more choice for you.

So what does the opening of Top-Level Domains mean for the charity sector?

Not much.