International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark. 14: 365–370 (2009)
Published online 1 July 2009 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/nvsm.373
Community fundraising 2.0—
the future of fundraising in
a networked society?
Bryan Miller*, y
Cancer Research UK
Over recent years, individual donor fundraisers worldwide have seen the beginnings of a
dramatic shift in the way that consumers react to mass fundraising communications,
resulting in many of the ‘interruptive’ direct marketing approaches on which individual
donor fundraising programmes are traditionally reliant delivering worse and worse
returns. This paper examines how the growth of a networked society of increasingly
sophisticated and independently informed consumers has contributed to this shift;
illustrates how the rise of Web 2.0 has accelerated its impact and considers how
individual donor fundraising may have to evolve to more effectively respond to this
in the future.
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Living in a networked society had the World Wide Web. Although they
perhaps started to become most apparent as
Consumers in today’s developed economies the Baby Boomers came to the fore as a new
live in what is termed a ‘networked society’.
and very demanding force in the consumer
This is not so named because they are market. These societal changes have resulted
connected by the internet—although a great
from the new wealth of opportunities and
many are. Rather, the term is used to highlight expectations that have developed over the last
the fact that these consumers are free, in ways
century or more following the gradual dissol-
not imagined by previous generations, to
ution of traditional social barriers and con-
choose their own personalised networks of
straints such as class, gender and ethnicity.
connections and influences in place of the
Along with the far richer world view and level
traditional societal guidelines which were of personal expectation that has resulted from
the norm for their forebears.
growing affluence, rising education levels,
Over the last couple of decades, the internet widening opportunities for travel and the
has clearly become a key facilitator of this, but
impact of global media.
the societal changes that underpin our net- With these changes have come growing
worked society actually began long before we
levels of consumer sophistication, confidence
and independence, and research reveals that
*Correspondence to: Bryan Miller, Head of Strategy & these in turn have led to increase in mistrust
Consumer Insight, Cancer Research UK.
E-mail: bryan-miller@hotmail.com and cynicism towards many once influential
y
Head of Strategy & Consumer Insight. traditional sources of authority, from the
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2009
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
366 Bryan Miller
However, the evolution of Web 2.0 services
designed specifically to enable easy sharing
and collaboration between individual users is
serving to rapidly increase the importance and
volume of such online advocacy. It is now very
easy for even internet-novice consumers to
access information from online networks of
their peers to help navigate the baffling
oversupply of brand choices available to them.
For example, if it is honest advice on holiday
destinations they want then they (along with
some 25 million others each month) can turn
to Tripadvisor.com, the largest travel com-
Figure 1. The growing trust deficit. Source: British Tele- munity site on the internet with over 20 million
com/The Future Foundation, (2005) The Responsible reviews left by fellow travellers and holiday-
Organization, The Future Foundation, London. makers. If they are unsure about what TV to
buy, then they do not need to rely on the
manufacturer’s promotional information, they
Government and mass media to big business. can check-out the comments and advice in the
As shown in Figure 1, comparing claimed customer reviews on Amazon. Or if they are
influence of different sources of information thinking about supporting a UK charity then
between 1997 and 2004, almost all traditional they might check the key financial details
sources of authority have seen their trust and and the reviews of other consumers on
influence on consumers decline over recent Intelligentgiving.com.
years.
In place of such once trusted institutions,
consumers are increasingly looking for alterna- What does this mean for
tive sources of information and advice to help
fundraisers?
guide the myriad of decisions they make in
everyday life, including their purchasing and One of the impacts of the ongoing evolution of
donating decisions. In particular, in search of our networked society is that we are currently
authenticity and independence, they are turn- living through a dramatic shift in the way that
ing to the opposite end of the scale from the people react to mass marketing and mass
big traditional sources. To friends, family and fundraising communications. Increasingly,
countless others they may have never met but, consumers from Boomer age downwards will
through the use of online recommendation now either ignore or actively defend them-
activities, that they treat as informed and selves from the ‘interruptive’ approaches on
trusted peers. which so many of our mass fundraising
It is important to acknowledge that even in strategies are reliant. Whether by opting-out
today’s internet-powered world, offline peer- of cold mailings and telemarketing or simply
to-peer sharing—also known as ‘talking’— having the confidence to say a polite but firm
remains the primary way in which individual ‘no’ to our street fundraisers.
consumers share views about products or This is so different to the very accommodat-
services they would, or would not, recom- ing response we have grown used to from the
mend to others. Indeed, various research older ‘Dorothy donor’ generation of suppor-
studies suggest that currently at most some ters and reflects a new, more challenging
20% of peer-to-peer brand advocacy occurs consumer attitude perfectly illustrated for me
online (Keller Fay Group, 2008) with younger by the lady portrayed in Figure 2. If this is the
audiences leading the way in that. face of the new networked society consumer
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2009
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
Community fundraising 2.0 367
commercial mass marketers, in terms of
forcing clarity on the way in which we must
look to change our mass fundraising
approaches if we are to achieve success in
the future.
The future of fundraising is to
stop interrupting what people are
interested in and to be what
Figure 2. The growing challenge of the networked people are interested in
society consumer.
Many fundraisers already follow this mantra as
a matter of course, and have done so for a great
we have to convince to support our cause, many years because they know that it is
there is no doubt that we need to reconsider fundamentally the right way to engage people
just how we go about the task! with their cause. However, as individual donor
Yet, contrary to this, the majority of fundraising programmes have become increas-
nonprofits still seem to continue to spend ingly database-led and reliant on the hard
most of their budgets trying to engage with numbers that come with direct marketing
people using the same old intrusive channels (such as optimal frequency of contact,
and techniques as they have for the last few response rate and acceptable ROI), so the
decades. No wonder, given that consumers danger has grown that we become more reliant
like the lady above are increasingly refusing to on interruption than on the personal interest of
play along, that we are generally seeing these our donors.
traditional approaches deliver worse and In defence of the hard numbers, I write this
worse returns. as a long-time direct marketer who completely
This is not to say that direct mail is dead or understands the massive value that comes from
that subscription to no-call registers has yet the discipline inherent in good direct market-
resulted in telemarketing completely drying-up ing and I certainly would never advocate
as a volume channel. Well managed, most of ditching the data. But, given the growing
our traditional approaches can still deliver evidence that our prospective supporters
acceptable returns to some level. However, I would far rather listen to someone in their
am not aware of many individual donor trusted network of peers than anything a direct
fundraisers who feel at all confident that if marketer might have to say, it seems clear that
they just ‘keep on keeping on’ with their we must evolve the ways we engage with them
traditional activities then they will build long- to avoid rejection.
term sustainable income streams. Something This is not simply something we can achieve
clearly has to change, but there is a lack of through the ‘mass personalisation’ that comes
clarity as to just what that change might be. from the smart use of the few pieces of data we
Back in 2005, the advertising agency JWT typically hold on a supporter or prospect to
summarised their view of the need to change tailor a few lines in copy or a donation prompt.
the ways in which brands engage with If peer-to-peer endorsement is rising to become
consumers with the statement ‘The future of a key driver in brand consideration then we
advertising is to stop interrupting what need to consider how we might be able to give
people are interested in and to be what supporters personal experiences of our organ-
people are interested in’. isations that they will deem worthy of passing-
I believe that this view of the future speaks on to their peers, and how we might help
as clearly to individual donor fundraisers as to facilitate such conversations. We need to start
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2009
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
368 Bryan Miller
to overcome our addiction to mass, interruption- set of online tools makes this approach not
based techniques and consider the opportu- just a possibility, but an imperative for any
nities that arise when we swap quantity for organization hoping to grow. Give your fan
quality—based on inspiring key individuals to club a megaphone and get out of the way’.
spread word of our need for support amongst Previously, attempts to recruit new suppor-
others in their personal networks. ters through donor-get-donor activities have
The opportunity to shift from the inter- often been often hampered by the limited
ruptive mass marketing that has driven so means available for supporters to easily share
much fundraising success over the last 20 years their enthusiasm with large numbers of people
or more to this new peer-to-peer advocacy they know. Beyond the highly motivated few
focus is something that has been very neatly who were willing to hand-out leaflets, man
summed-up by online marketing specialist Seth shopping precinct stands, and host events, the
Godin (2009) as what he terms ‘flipping the majority of supporters did not have any easy
funnel’. The idea is illustrated graphically in and unobtrusive way to share your message
Figure 3. with their friends, even if they wanted to. All
In the traditional ‘vertical funnel’ direct too often, what appeared to be well planned
marketing model, we pour prospects into the ‘donor-get-donor’ direct marketing campaigns
wide funnel mouth, expose them to fundrais- would fail because they essentially ended-up
ing asks, and hope that some will respond and trying to equip an untrained, and often not
emerge from the other end as supporters. especially keen, sales force with leaflets rather
Unfortunately, as we see the performance of than inspiring and facilitating a new network
traditional mass direct marketing approaches of advocates.
waning, we need to feed ever more prospects However, the growth of easy peer-to-peer
into the funnel mouth just to deliver the same recommendation fuelled by the rise of Web 2.0
number of supporters at the other end. So, applications has transformed this situation. It is
recruitment costs go up and up and the model now incredibly easy for users of social network
becomes increasingly unviable. sites such as Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn to
Godin describes the way in which we need share ideas and information with their personal
to change our thinking to fit with the new peer- network of friends, work colleagues or wider
to-peer approach as ‘flipping the funnel’ such peers. They do not even need to make a special
that it becomes a ‘megaphone’, with enthused song and dance about it. Simply upload
and well equipped advocates using Web 2.0 something to their online social network
tools to shout-out to their personal networks profile or update their status field to mention
on your behalf. In Godin’s own words ‘A new what they are doing for their favourite charity
and this flows out into the news feeds of
everyone in their network.
One example which amply illustrates both
the power of such social network communi-
cations and the rate at which these are
becoming ever more effective comes from
online fundraising company Justgiving. As one
of the UK’s leading providers of personalised
fundraising webpages, they have long relied
upon individuals emailing a link to their
personalised fundraising page to everyone in
their address book with a request that they
sponsor them in whatever charitable activity
they are undertaking. However, following
Figure 3. ‘Flipping the funnel’. Facebook’s May 2007 release of a coding toolkit
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2009
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
Community fundraising 2.0 369
that allowed the development of applications Community fundraising 2.0
able to make use of its member data, Justgiving
was quick off the mark to provide an application So, who might be best placed to develop new
linking from a fundraiser’s personal Facebook ways to engage, enthuse and equip savvy,
profile to their Justgiving page, complete with networked society consumers to use these
the latest details of money raised. tools to fundraise within their own networks of
The chart in Figure 4 shows what happened friends and contacts?
next. Through the latter half of 2007 google.- I say, step forward all you Community
co.uk remained the largest single source of Fundraisers. With your knowledge and experi-
traffic to Justgiving. However, traffic from ence of how to give diverse groups of
Facebook, fuelled by use of the application, individuals real personal ownership of fun-
grew fairly steadily and by March 2008 Face- draising activities; how to equip people to
book had become the single largest source of explain your cause simply and effectively and
traffic to the site. By July 2008 over 100 000 people how to ensure that the money all gets collected
had added the application to their Facebook at the end of the day.
profiles, and through it shared news of their The more I consider it, the more I am
fundraising activity with their whole network convinced that the key to engaging with
of Facebook ‘Friends’ through their newsfeeds. networked society consumers and tapping
While creating your own Facebook applica- into the new fundraising potential offered by
tions like Justgiving did require some specialist the rise of Web 2.0 will be to re-visit traditional
coding skill; much of the basic functionality community fundraising approaches and adapt
required to facilitate simple and unobtrusive them to the online world. We need to move
peer-to-peer sharing is now freely available on from the direct marketer’s focus of building
social networks and other Web 2.0 sites. All and mailing mass contact lists and develop new
that is needed is for nonprofits to find effective online fundraising products that supporters
ways to capitalise on the new opportunities will want to take to their friends and wider
that result. networks themselves. As we ‘flip the funnel’
Figure 4. Sources of traffic to Justgiving.com. Source: Data provided by courtesy of Justgiving.com # 2009.
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2009
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
370 Bryan Miller
and our supporters become a key channel remember that in time this situation will pass
through which we communicate, the professional and consumer confidence and spending/
fundraiser’s role will increasingly become that donating power will return. In contrast to
of community manager rather campaign the unpredictable nature of the financial
manager, as each community fundraises in world, the willingness of groups of people
the way that works best for them. to gather together to enable good things to be
This shift will require new skillsets and, done seems to be something that remains
importantly, also new ways of testing and constant. As the adoption of social media
evaluating our fundraising activity. However, if continues to grow during the current financial
we can combine the enthusiasm, skills and situation, one piece of good news is that we
experience of Community Fundraisers with can look forward to the presence of far greater
the data-led discipline of direct marketing, then numbers of digitally empowered donors and
I think we could be looking at fundraising’s communities with which to engage when we
next hot discipline—Community Fundraising return to brighter financial times. So, in the
2.0. meantime, it remains essential that forward
thinking fundraisers continue to consider,
investigate and test the newly available online
A footnote on the possible impact community fundraising opportunities now
of the recession on online available if they are to be properly equipped
community fundraising for a healthy fundraising future.
Given the global recession prevailing at the
time of writing, it seems important to consider Biographical note
what effect this might have on the newly
emerging online fundraising opportunities Bryan Miller is a marketing and fundraising
outlined here. strategist with 20 years experience gained
At the outset of the current economic crisis working with a wide range of commercial
there were some who held fast to the belief and nonprofit brands across Europe and the
that individual giving would continue to grow US. In 2008 he joined Cancer Research UK,
despite the recession, as had been seen during the UK’s largest fundraising charity, as head
previous financial downturns. However, the of its central Strategy & Consumer Insight
prevailing feeling now seems to be that we will Department. Prior to this he spent many years
see a negative impact on individual donor as a Planning Director at Merkle/Domain,
fundraising overall, possibly a very significant Whitewater, and then WWAV Rapp Collins.
one. The truth is that online community He is a regular international conference
fundraising, or indeed community fundraising speaker on subjects related to digital marketing
of any form, may be particularly impacted by and fundraising and is author of the online
this. Not only because of the resulting fundraising blog Giving in a Digital World.
reduction in disposable income and increase
in real or perceived poverty of individual
donors, but specifically because of the reliance References
of community fundraising on the willingness of Godin S. 2009. ‘Flipping The Funnel’ http://
individuals to request donations from family, sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/01/
friends and colleagues, which may well be flipping_the_fu.html Accessed April 30th.
reduced by uncertainty about how the finan- Keller Fay Group. 2008. Offline WOM More
cial crisis is impacting on others. Prevalent, Positive and Credible Than Online
However, while at present news of the Buzz, http://kellerfay.com/?page_id=230 Accessed
financial crisis seems ever darker, we must April 30th.
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2009
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
