What’s to Come in Digital Fundraising?

Many want to know what is going to happen in the future. Unfortunately for those curious minds, no one can say for sure. However, we can still make educated predictions. At Charity Dynamics, we recently celebrated our ten year birthday. This milestone got me thinking about how fast time flies, but also about the huge changes the company has seen in the digital fundraising space.

The digital fundraising space has changed so much in the last ten years, what will the next ten hold?

What a better way to predict the future than to ask you! Our professional opinion survey had responses from 133 individuals from more than 68 different nonprofit organizations. The results generated a really great report, The Next 10 Years in Digital Fundraising, but I want to share some of the results with you on here as well!

Digital fundraising accounts for around 7% of all donations.

In our survey, half our respondents predicted that percentage to rise to more than 30% by 2025. That’s a big increase, but with the way technology is heading, I honestly don’t find that predicted climb all too surprising. Another increase predicted by our nonprofit professionals is social media’s role in fundraising. In fact, only 3% of our survey takers predict a decrease in social media’s role. Social media has made fundraising easier for supporters, peer-to-peer participants, donor and more.

Nonprofit professionals are excited for new technologies.

I mean, who isn’t? When we asked how donors will prefer to gather information about their favorite nonprofits, 37% chose websites, which is currently the most popular source of information, but 32% chose ‘something new.’ Ten years is a long time, especially for technology. Who knows what new ways of information delivery will be available to us!

If you don’t even know what types of technologies will be available, how do you prepare for them? I recommend staying up on industry trends.

Here’s a few ways to stay up on industry trends:

• Attend conferences, workshops and webinars
• Read industry reports and blogs
• Network and brainstorm with other nonprofit professionals
• Invest and experiment with innovation
• Measure results and look for momentum in new areas and technologies

Here are 3 big trends to watch for in the next couple years:

Digital wallets (currency online), bio-metrics (touch ID) and digital assistants (voice to command actions). Nonprofits will also need to be cautious and use platforms that have protection and security developed to lessen the privacy concerns supporter will definitely have.

My team at Charity Dynamics and I look forward to all the exciting changes the next 10 years will bring to the nonprofit industry and we are thankful to all of you who took the time to respond to our survey. It is truly the individuals who work tirelessly towards their causes that make the nonprofit world what it is today, and what it will be tomorrow.

Read more about what I’ve got to say about the future of fundraising in the latest npEXPERTS!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Donna Wilkins

Donna is the fearless leader and CEO of Charity Dynamics. She provides vision and leadership that comes from a solid foundation of over a decade’s experience helping nonprofits leverage technology. She holds a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Texas and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Illinois. As Convio’s first VP of Client Services, Donna took their client base from one to over 300, shaping an industry leader in the process. Donna saw an opportunity to provide additional services to nonprofit organizations and in 2004, she founded Charity Dynamics. She started the company to provide a smart, responsive option to nonprofit clients ready to adopt innovative strategies for their online programs. She is rarely at rest: tirelessly exploring new opportunities and cutting edge ideas that keep Charity Dynamics out front of industry trends. From responsive tablet designs to mobile advocacy tools, Donna can scope it, scale it and serve it to create client deliverables that translate into real results. Donna does it all and still makes time to cook breakfast for the Charity Dynamics team once a month!