See What’s Out There

Having a good donation page is important so that you can convert those who clicked to get to the page into people who give. You also want them to give more.

Increasingly we see from research that people like to give where they think they can make a difference. If you ask me to save Africa from HIV/AIDS, I am just totally overwhelmed by that. If you ask me to save this one orphan, I can handle it. The success of new internet philanthropies such as DonorsChoose.org and Kiva are connected to the same idea of letting people make a difference where they can actually see the difference.

This idea can find different forms for different circumstances. One that I like is how Hillary Clinton is fundraising for the upcoming primary in Pennsylvania.

Here’’s a screen shot of her donation page:

You can see the original here. What is interesting is how she is letting donors decide where to place their money, whether on radio, tv or online ads, vans or printed door hangers. And, you can spread your money around, putting small amounts in each category. The campaign hopes the overall amount will be greater than you would give otherwise.

As Colin Delany pointed out in an online forum, the money is fungible anyway — when they fill one category they can simply reallocate general support money to another.

Can you use this technique in your fundraising? Have you thought about how you can give donors more choice and more transparency? If not, now is the time to get started.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 12:17 pm and is filed under fundraising, politics, 2008 election. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.