In the wake of Monday's bombing at the Boston Marathon comes caution to watch out for fake charities run by criminals who exploit national tragedy via the Internet. Over a dozen charity domains were registered in regards to Boston with names like "bostonmarathondonations.com", "bostonmarathonvictimfund.com" and "bostonmarathonattack.com". … [Read more...]
Online nonprofit fundraising is on the rise, with explosive growth in sustaining gifts and a larger audience of supporters reached through social media networks like Facebook, according to a new comprehensive analysis released last week of 55 of the U.S.’s leading nonprofits, including the American Red Cross, Sierra Club, American Lung Association, AARP and Human Rights Campaign. While the growth of online fundraising is expected to remain robust, the report also cites the long-term decline of response rates as a top priority for nonprofits evaluating their email performance in an increasingly crowded inbox. … [Read more...]
by Tzvi Raviv Summertime at Rutgers Hillel is a good time to plan for the next year and read. Over this past summer I read two books that helped me to articulate a plan to improve Rutgers Hillel’s online fundraising efforts, this plan was created under the guidance of Amy Winn-Dworkin, Rutgers Hillel Development Director. The books are The Long Tail by Chris Anderson and Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. In his book, Anderson presents his interpretation to how businesses can take advantage of the long tail theory. A great example of the Long Tail is the dueling business models of Netflix and blockbuster video. Netflix is able to provide a large number of rare, obscure, and overlooked films and TV shows that are in low demand in an online marketplace. This business model allows … [Read more...]
by Abigail Pickus When The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles made headlines recently with its public plea to raise $9 million to get Woody Allen to film his next movie in Israel, they helped expose the budding concept of crowdfunding - and not just any crowdfunding, but Jewish crowdfunding. “The Woody Allen Israel Project,” posted on the Jewish crowdfunding platform Jewcer, which asks “[e]verybody who cares about great movies, and about Israel, [to] give a few dollars,” is just one of a host of new ways the Internet is revolutionizing how Jews give tzedakah and support the projects they believe in. To the uninitiated, crowdfunding is when individuals turn to the public via the Web to help fund their personal projects. Kickstarter, the most recognized crowdfunding platform, … [Read more...]
by Isaac Shalev With major funders and foundations seeking to make structural impacts on the Jewish nonprofit sector, the explosive growth of online giving offers a significant opportunity for a bold new effort. As of 2010, online giving represented about 7.6% of total giving, according to Blackbaud Inc.’s 2010 Online Giving Report. In 2011, online giving was up 13% from 2010, as the 2011 report showed that online giving is continuing to make a huge impact on the fundraising landscape. For some time, nonprofits have been resistant to online giving because those gifts, made by credit card, were subject to the various fees associated with processing credit card transactions - fees that could amount to as much as 5% of the total gift. As online giving has increased in popularity, nonprofit … [Read more...]
The 2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study - a comprehensive new analysis of various U.S. nonprofits - showed nonprofit online fundraising grew for a second year in a row, driven largely by an increase in gifts to rights-based nonprofits. While the response rates to fundraising email messages stayed fairly consistent for nonprofits in 2011, the average rates of new Facebook fans, mobile subscribers, and people who took action from an advocacy email soared. Key Findings include: Overall fundraising revenue saw extensive gains with an average increase of 19% from 2010 to 2011. International sector organizations - which saw a spike in fundraising due to high profile aid needs in 2010 - represent the only sector that saw a decrease in online revenue from 2010 to 2011. While one-time gifts remained … [Read more...]
