fundraising

Insights from our Digital Philanthropy and Millennial Engagement Conference

Joshua RobertsonOctober 19, 2016

More than100 giving and engagement professionals joined us in Atlanta for #RuffaloCON16, a summit on digital fundraising strategies and tactics to engage Millennials and use emerging digital solutions. We had a blast, and here are few things we learned:

The Millennials are rising

This important group will soon make up half of most higher education institution alumni bases, and institutions want to increase engagement with this influential and passionate group of young donors. It’s a hot topic that we received a lot of questions from all types of attendees at the conference, from vice presidents of advancement, to directors of annual giving, to direct digital appeal professionals and leaders of non-profit organizations.

The time for digital is now

We went to the conference ready to make the case for digital engagement, but found a group of professionals ready to take the leap. In fact, there was a higher interest in adoption of new tactics like digital advertising, retargeting, mobile geo-location, crowdfunding and online give days than we’ve ever seen.

Everyone feels a need to do more with less

These emerging trends give us two great ways forward out of this conundrum of doing more with fewer resources–digital engagement can have a very low cost per “impression,” and social media ambassadors run on good will, not your budget.

Doing exactly the same thing but just “better” isn’t a strategy

Donors are changing, and when young people become a bigger part of our base, we need to change with them. This means that adopting new tactics to boost traditional methods like mail, phone and email is crucial. It’s all about multichannel synergy, creating the best possible approach to excite donors and spur them to take action.

Testing and experiments are our ticket to greater response

If you’re not experimenting, you’re not doing it right. This means taking out random groups from your prospect base and trying new appeals, subject lines, and even visuals on them to see what gets the best response with each group. Marketing automation, when it becomes a bigger part of what we do in fundraising, will help a lot with this, but the time is now for true, randomized experimentation.

Digital marketing is more than posting on Facebook and LinkedIn

It’s about being everywhere your donors are online. This can seem like a daunting task, since it could involve working with literally thousands of ad, retargeting and mobile providers. Most organizations will need a little help putting together a comprehensive digital fundraising strategies plan from idea to execution.

Let’s talk about digital fundraising strategies and donor engagement

We had a great two days in Atlanta and we’re ready to continue the conversation. Get in touch with us to talk about taking your Millennial engagement and digital communications strategy to the next level.

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