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What are your goals for 2023?

SB Admin
11 January 2023
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Data is becoming increasingly important within the charity sector as building relationships with your donors helps to produce a steady stream of income for charities to carry out their vital work and plan ahead from their goals. Relationships with donors can be built in many ways but that relationship can only spark if you know who your donors are. For some charities, the relationship with the donors is not yet important, the donation itself is important irrespective of whether you know who they are or not. But remember, if you are relying on anonymous donations, you won’t be able to claim Gift Aid on these.

Turning Donor Data into Regular Donations

Some smaller to medium sized charities manage their donor data using an Excel spreadsheet but some larger charities use CRM systems like Donorfy, Salesforce and Blackbaud to focus on targeting previous donors.

CRM systems are a great tool for charities to;

  • Manage donations, know who are one off donors
  • What they have opted in for
  • What fundraising aspects are they interacting with?

One thing that needs more focus is the opt-ins. This is something that charities can really utilise as long as it is done correctly. How can you re-engage donors? How can you turn a one off donor into a regular donor?

Charity Digital reported that the penalties for breaching the PECR can be severe. For example, Papa John’s Pizza was fined £10,000 last year after 15 customers complained about getting marketing texts or emails because they had not had an opportunity to opt out when they ordered their pizzas. Charities need to be very careful to comply with PECR, and you can currently only take advantage of soft opt-in as part of sales activities. To take advantage of the soft opt-in, four conditions need to be satisfied. See below:

  • You can only use contact details collected during a sale, or negotiations for a sale, of a product or service
  • You provide an opportunity for the individual to opt out of marketing communications when you collect the contact information, and in every subsequent communication with that individual
  • The marketing material you do send to them by email or text is about similar or related products and services
  • You offer a way for the recipient to opt-out of further contact in every communication you have with them

To read more about soft opt-ins, click here. You can also read more on the Value of Donor Data, written by Supported Giving here.

Building Meaningful Supporter Relationships

It’s fantastic for charities to have a database of donors who they can build a relationship with, however, there won’t be one way to target each demographic.

Charities have changed and evolved throughout the years, and the way supporters donate has changed. Previous generations would donate using cash or cheques but this is now a thing of the past. When was the last time you carried cash on you? Do you even use a chequebook anymore? Gen Alpha, Gen Z, Millennials and even the majority of Gen X are using a smartphone and mobile payments. Many charities over the years have updated their websites to provide an option to make an online donation, however, this is not always a simple and easy process to follow. There are often a number of steps for the supporter to go through to make their donation which can be time consuming, leading to donor dropoff. Particularly with those who are less tech savvy or the younger generation. Generation Alpha will play a very important role in the future of charities.

Charity Digital released an article ‘How charities can engage younger generations’ which highlights very important figures to consider when targeting each demographic. It’s important to remember that each generation is different with trends shifting & patterns reversing. However, there is still plenty of information that can help charities better understand how to engage with each generation.

For example, millennials:

Gen Z is the fastest emerging generation of employees, consumers, and trendsetters (and volunteers). They approach saving, consumption, investing, socialising, and work differently from Millennials.

Link to our engage a wider audience guide is in the social media section.

Consider Younger Trustees

This information is vital for charities aiming to engage the younger demographic. Other considerations such as; Consider younger Trustees. Yes, Trustees need experience, however, trends are constantly changing. What was a useful fundraising strategy years ago, won’t have the same results now. According to the Young Trustees Movement, less than 3% of charity trustees are under 30. These are a few core benefits for onboarding a younger trustee:

  • Diverse perspectives allow charities to better navigate risks and uncertainty
  • Young people are often better positioned to future-proof decision-making
  • The young have an entirely unique knowledge based on their lived experience
  • Younger people can reflect the wants and needs of younger charity users
  • Younger generations bring different ideas and innovations

Not only do you need to be able to provide an easy, simple method for the younger generation to donate to your charity but you need to make sure you are marketing your charity well to the younger generation. Research suggests that 62% of young consumers (13-39 year olds) listen to podcasts. According to a College Group report, younger generations particularly tune in while they do other tasks, such as working, studying, and doing chores.

  • Champion authenticity, as younger generations are turned off by over-preparedness
  • Include a moderator to keep time, keep the conversation flowing, and set the tone
  • Think about including storytelling and narrative to help create an emotional connection
  • Keep them longer – between 45 – 90 minutes, ideally – because the younger generation tends to prefer listening to longer episodes, according to research
  • Maintain a regular publishing schedule – once per week, for example, or every other week on Wednesday – and ensure that you stick to it, no matter what
  • Ensure it is on Spotify, as the younger generations prefer that platform, especially Gen Z

Social Media Goals

You have to use social media the right way, younger people are on social media but not on the social media preferred by the charity sector. This means, charities need to pivot social media strategies to better engage the younger generations. 

If you would like to read more into how to engage a wider audience, the article used for our latest news is linked here. We have also written our own downloadable guide here.

How we can help you

2020-2022 were eye opening years for many charities and many adapted well to the changes. In conclusion, as the world shifts to a more digital presence, charities have to change with it. Offering simple and easy donation methods to potential supporters is key in the initial relationship building process. Supported Giving offers a variety of cashless donation methods which makes it easy for the donor and simple for the charity. Our QR code solution offers trackable QR codes which are linked to customisable donation pages, allowing charities to capture important information that will be useful in future fundraising campaigns. With the options for one off and regular giving, gift aid opt in, marketing opt in, newsletter and membership sign up, donation reason, select an appeal feature and more, charities can start to target certain audiences who will be most receptive to the campaigns based on the data they have collected. 

All reporting is in real time tracking which is available on our Customer Portal and charities are able to create an unlimited number of QR codes for each area of fundraising, whether this is per event, per social media platform, per fundraiser, raffle etc. Each donation page is customisable to reflect the campaign and the donation flow consists of 4 simple steps:

  • Scan QR code and click donation page link 
  • Click donate (pre selected amounts available) 
  • Choose Apple Pay, Google Pay or Donate by Card
  • Donation collected! Opt in preferences 

With our QR code platform, we offer Text Giving as a free service. All reporting appears on the Customer Portal. If you are interested in learning more or would like to book onto a demo, please click the ‘Book a Demo’ button on our website or email info@supportedgiving.com and one of our team will be in touch.