The irresistible rise of online giving coincides with more trust in charities

In today's Third Sector, there are three stories that need mentioning here - the first is an in depth report into The irresistible rise of online giving, another says Public trust on the increase and there's the call to Forge a lasting relationship with donors on the web.

You need to register on Third Sector to read all three, or you can take in some the highlights below from the in depth report by Helen Barrett, which starts:

Sponsorship websites are reporting record profits, with charities also reaping the benefits. Is it all too good to be true?

She does go on to list a number of reasons why it isn't too good to be true (as you'd expect us to say!):

Small charities that rely on events fundraising achieve significant cost savings through the sites. Online transactions mean cash from supporters is received immediately rather than after the event. The sites pass money to the charity within a week and reclaim Gift Aid on their behalf.

For example, Justgiving's fee - 5 per cent of a donation plus Gift Aid - is taken at the end of the process and from the Gift Aid element, making income virtually risk-free for charities.

The charity examples shown are also familiar:

Helen Yates, chief executive of [Multiple Sclerosis Resource Centre], says Justgiving has transformed its control over cash, reduced the cost of processing Gift Aid and liberated staff to do other things.

You can read more about their story in a previous post on How a small charity raised over £237K with Justgiving.

Our Managing Director, Anne-Marie Huby, is also quoted with her thoughts on online giving:

"We are a company, but we put social dividends above long-term profit...
Our users want to be empowered, to organise themselves for the causes they care about and delight in doing so."

In a similar vein to a recent piece another colleague, Tom Mansell, wrote about Social Media in Professional Fundraising, the story continues:

Charities should not underestimate the popularity of social networking tools, says Huby. Late last year, online community Facebook took over from Google as the number one route by which fundraisers and donors arrived at Justgiving. This small fact, she says, is highly indicative of how people are behaving online.

To illustrate that fact, for the period of 12th - 18th May this year, 8% of all visitors to the site came from Facebook compared to 4% from Google. That is a huge change from the same time last year, with Facebook referrers increasing by almost 1000%:

Charities are increasingly adopting these social networking tools to target new donors for popular annual events. St Michael's Hospice in Harrogate, for example, set up a dedicated page on Justgiving for its annual Jailbreak event, which sees local business people locked in prison until they raise enough money to bail themselves out.

The event's dedicated page included a gallery on photo- sharing site Flickr.

You can read more about Flickr on Justgiving here, but Tina Holroyd, head of fundraising at St Michael's Hospice, added:

"The business people that took part were able to email their entire contacts lists with a link to the page, with all the technology in place for an instant donation. And the money arrived on the same day."

The last word is left to Liz Goodey, head of research at the Charities Aid Foundation:

"I don't think there's any more risk with online fundraising than with any other fundraising method. Online fundraising is used instead of knocking on doors with a paper form, not as well as.

There's no evidence to suggest that there are more requests simply because requests are online, and no evidence at all that its popularity is declining."

So are the three stories linked?

Well, online giving keeps growing year after year and so much of our lives (social networking, buying products, reading news, just about everything and anything) takes place online that it's only going to grow further.

The relationships with donors and supporters that begin online (be it through a donation or a charity's website form), or are taken online, can be nurtured and developed using all those things that people use the internet for, and in the places that people go online.

If people have an online *space* that they call their own and if the charity updates them on their work in that *space* or see the fruits of their donations in the charity's *space* then trust and mutually rewarding relationships can follow.