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Digital Giving A 12 step response to the Charity Commission’s Making Digital Work

INTELLIGENCE. INSPIRATION. IMPACT.

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About the authors

Kevin MullaneyHead of Digital

Diana SoltmannChairman

As Head of Digital at Flagship Consulting, Kevin is responsible for the strategic development and implementation of integrated digital campaigns. He has worked for a variety of clients, including global brands such as EY and AIG, smaller retail brands like Boxfresh and Sofa Workshop, and non-profit organisations such as Sumivector.

With ten years of deep experience across SEO, social media, digital advertising, website development and user experience mapping, he drives innovation, digital transforma-tion and marketing performance for a wide range of clients.

Kevin’s knowledge of integrated digital planning and execution also puts him at the heart of content led marketing initiatives for Flagship, delivering real impact for clients across the communications mix.

Diana Soltmann is Flagship’s founder and chairwoman, she has been senior communications counsel to government and business leaders for more than 30 years, including secretaries of state and CEOs of several FTSE 100 firms. Flagship has considerable experience in the third sector; working for Marie Curie, St Christopher’s Hospice, the Family Holiday Association, Mencap, Royal Masonic Benevolent Institute and MHA. Diana is also a Trustee of the military charity, The Officers’ Association.

Flagship is a communications consultancy driven by INTELLIGENCE and INSPIRATION to deliver measurable IMPACT for our clients. As part of Peppercomm, we’re an international top 100 communications firm, with particular expertise in the financial services, professional services and travel & leisure industries.

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We are living in an increasingly digital world. Millions of British people spend hours every day immersed in the internet, and digital devices are becoming a deeply integrated part of everyday life. Digital presents a number of advantages for charities, including:

▪ Far more cost-effective (or free) marketing and fundraising than can be achieved offline.

▪ Enhanced ability to reach donors and beneficiaries. ▪ Unprecedented access to useful information.

Digital also provides a way for charities to reach people without ‘hounding’ or harassing them – something that several high profile charities have received criticism for recently.

Despite this, however, many charities remain resolutely ‘analogue’, preferring traditional methods of audience interaction over digital engagement. While there is a lot to be said for analogue outreach (and digital need not by any means replace or side-line traditional methods), as consumers become accustomed to doing things digitally, charities are in danger of missing out. To address this issue, the Charity Commission has released new recommendations regarding digital for charities. Implementing these recommendations may seem like a big step into the dark for charities that currently have little to no digital capability, however aligning with the new digital world is reasonably simple. We have outlined some steps which may help:

1 – Encourage A Digital-Friendly Culture Studies in the retail sector have shown that the single biggest challenge to effectively introducing digital is a resistant corporate culture. It is not enough to simply bring in a digital manager and trust that the digital aspect of things will quietly happen. You have to introduce a digital-friendly culture. This does not mean forcing your entire team to become social media aficionados overnight – but you should allow an awareness of the potential of digital to permeate your existing cultural structures. Ideas which may ease the process along include:

▪ Encouraging individual team members to set up social media accounts, or at least to spend some time exploring the world of social media. This will enable a greater understanding of what, precisely, you are trying to achieve, and why.

▪ Reassuring people that bringing in digital does not mean a rejection of traditional methods, nor does it indicate a shift

in brand identity. Rather, it provides a way of facilitating and enhancing both of these.

▪ Involve all team members in the digitisation process – either on an advisory or a more practical level. This helps people to feel ‘ownership’ of new digital channels.

2 – Formulate A StrategyIf you’ve decided to go digital, you also need to fully understand why you’re doing this, what you hope to achieve by it, and what kind of digital routes you wish to take. This means forming a comprehensive digital strategy. Things you need to consider when drawing up your digital strategy include:

▪ What do you want to achieve: increase fundraising, increase awareness, lower administration costs, improve accountability - something else?

▪ How can your digital endeavours be aligned with your organisation as a whole?

▪ Where do you lack digital knowledge and processes, what efficient steps can you take to remedy these?

▪ Which digital channels and processes should you consider, and in which order?

▪ What governance process should you have for each of these digital channels?

▪ How will you measure success and learn from your results?

Did You Know?

One in five charities still doesn’t have the ability to accept online donations, despite donors saying that they often prefer digital fundraising.

How long does it take to learn to use social media?

Not long at all. Depending on various factors (including language skills and existing digital capability), brand new social media users are usually functionally proficient within three hours of setting up their account.

Twelve Steps Towards Embracing Digital For Charities

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Apps

A specialised ‘app’ which can be downloaded onto a mobile device is a great way to engage digitally with your audience. An app can be anything you want it to be - from a quirky educational game, to a scrolling newsfeed, to something which helps you carry out your work. St John’s Ambulance, for example, has an app which provides emergency healthcare advice.

3 – Think SecurityA major concern with which charities have to contend at all levels is that of security. When your work involves individuals giving their bank details, a little wariness is natural. People are also becoming more concerned about the safety of their data. It is therefore worth thinking very hard not only about how you are going to ensure digital security, but to reassure your audience that their data will not be misappropriated. There are many standardised tools and processes that are quite simple and very cheap (or free) to adopt, which can provide consumers with confidence.

4 – Create A Website A website of your own is the first major step towards building a digital interface for your charity. A website gives you a unique opportunity to reach your target audience and get your message across on your own terms. It is also worth noting that many people these days far prefer making donations online than via direct debit or complicated paper donation forms. A website gives you the perfect opportunity to allow for these donations. The best websites tend to be:

▪ Easy to navigate. ▪ Look good, but professional. Simpler is often better,

but your overall design will depend largely upon your individual branding.

▪ Balance readability with reliable useful detail. ▪ Provide simple and safe opportunities for donation (if applicable).

5 – Create Engaging ContentRegular, engaging content published on your digital platforms is the way you maintain brand momentum in a digital age. Your content should not only reinforce your charity’s message and aims, but also update your audience in the work that you’re doing, and anything else which may be of relevance. Features of good content include:

▪ Regular updates. Studies show that even indifferent content, if posted regularly, produces more audience engagement than fantastic content posted sporadically. If you’re unable to regularly produce content, perhaps consider hiring someone to do it for you.

▪ Relative simplicity. As a general rule, easily accessible content is the best. This doesn’t mean that you have to write at a low level - merely that your content should be organised in an easily comprehensible way. Remember, a lot of people will be flicking through your material while on their commute, or in idle moments. Huge blocks of impenetrable text do not catch the eye in the way that snappier content does.

Shareability. The easier you make it to ‘share’ your content across multiple platforms, the more people you will reach.

6 – Build Your Digital BrandA website and content platform are a great start to incorporating digital, but there’s so much more which could be done here. The potential of digital to reach and engage your target audience is phenomenal - and growing all the time. Avenues to consider exploring include:

▪ A Wikipedia page. ▪ A Twitter handle. ▪ A Facebook page. ▪ An Instagram account. ▪ A YouTube channel. ▪ LinkedIn for your people. ▪ An app.

Of these, a Facebook page and a Twitter handle are almost expected by audiences these days. Your social media pages will be used not only for potential clients and donors to research you, but by them to engage with you.

7 – Work On Digital OutreachDigital outreach is not dissimilar to conventional outreach – it just has a lot more variety and nuance. Points to consider when working on digital outreach strategies include:

Did You Know?

Younger people are 16 times more likely to engage with online charity approaches than they are street-based or door-to-door approaches.

Channel Profiles

Facebook - Social networking site. Wide user base. Posts can vary greatly in format and content.Twitter - Social networking and ‘chatter’ site. Posts limited to 140 characters. Home of the #hashtag.Instagram - Image sharing social network. Has a relatively youthful user base.YouTube - Video sharing site. YouTube URLs can be embedded in posts on any of the above platforms. LinkedIn - B2B social network, used for connecting professionals.

UK Digital Statistics

• 42.4 million British people own smartphones. The population of the UK as a whole is 64.1 million.

• 31 million Brits have a Facebook account.• 14 million Brits have an Instagram account.• At least 13 million British people have a Twitter

account.• LinkedIn is viewed 60 million times by UK users

each month.• Pinterest receives 3 million pins per day in the UK

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▪ The channel you’re using. Different channels have different audiences, and different formats. As such, they require different strategies for engagement.

▪ How you’re going to manage queries. Digital outreach means digital engagement - and if there’s nobody to reply to queries and issues raised via your digital platforms, your brand value will drop significantly.

▪ The zeitgeist. The digital world moves extremely quickly. Your digital marketing needs to be right on the pulse of the current mood - the more up to date and relevant, the better.

▪ The potential for abuse. However noble your mission, if the internet can mock it, it will. Any digital content needs to be screened for potential double entendres or anything which could be twisted by meme-makers and mockers.

8 – Work On Brand Management StrategiesThe digital world presents boundless opportunities for outreach and engagement - but also poses a number of risks for unwary brands. In recent years, several charities have found their image and branding co-opted for unsavoury purposes. Furthermore, it is not at all uncommon for any brand to come under attack on social media, either by ‘trolls’ who thrive on online discord, or by genuinely disgruntled customers. A social media disaster can quickly swell to brand-destroying proportions, so you need to have a coherent digital brand management strategy in place to nip such things in the bud. Bear in mind:

▪ You should ideally have a dedicated member of staff manning your social media. Audiences expect immediate engagement via social media, and a timely, well-worded response to a negative post threatening to go viral can make the world of difference.

▪ You need to carefully consider the impact on your brand of any digital content you yourself publish. While staid and formulaic tweets and posts do not provoke a lot of engagement, unbridled personal opinion may also damage your brand. Develop guidelines regarding posts to social media.

9 – Engage Your Audience In OutreachOne of the big advantages of digital is that you can really involve your audience in building your brand. Charities have always engaged with their audiences - public fundraising endeavours, and so forth. Digital provides the opportunity to take this to a whole new level. While creating a “viral” campaign contains a large element of luck, there are some things which can help:

▪ Allow personalisation. Something which lets users put themselves in the content (selfies being a good example) is likely to get picked up and shared far more than anything more generic.

▪ Keep it simple. People won’t bother with something which can’t be put together and shared with reasonable speed and ease.

▪ Make it shareable. The easier it is for your campaign to be shared across multiple channels, the greater chance it has to go ‘viral’.

10 – Work On ConversionsWhile the aforementioned audience engagement in campaigning is great in many ways, it cannot really be considered a ‘success’ unless the attention it gets you translates into donations, or otherwise helps you to carry out your work. So you need to convince people that simply ‘liking’ a page isn’t enough. Ways to do this include:

▪ Providing easy and obvious links through which to donate, volunteer, etc.

▪ Demonstrate the good work you do, with grateful reference to the public participation which has allowed this.

11 – Build RelationshipsA criticism often levelled at digital is that it is less ‘personal’ than previous methods of audience engagement. However, if used correctly, digital allows plenty of opportunity to build a relationship and a rapport with users. Ways to do so include:

▪ Designing personalised apps, which can be tailored to the specifications of individual users.

▪ Having a dedicated team on hand to respond quickly and personally to digital interactions.

Digital Bandwagons

It is sadly not uncommon for popular or emotive causes to be co-opted by unethical individuals or organisations. Military charities have several times struggled to prevent far-right organisations from using their branding for their own purposes. Similarly, popular charities may find their mission subverted by online (and offline!) fraudsters, preying on the generosity of the public. This is something charities need to be aware of in the digital age.

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Photo by - JULIAN MASON - flickr.com

▪ Providing engaging and relevant content (see above). ▪ Asking site visitors to register - this allows you to gather

data on audience demographics, and therefore tailor your content more specifically. However, it is unwise to force registration on visitors unwilling to divulge their data!

12 - LearnThe digital world changes constantly. One of the most important things you can do to build your digital brand is to keep a close eye on what’s working. Be quick to capitalise on successes and change things that are failing. Don’t assume that digital will run itself - learn from it, constantly, and use the lessons you reap to your advantage!

What Now?If you’re serious about raising your digital capabilities, it’s worth taking stock of what you can and cannot do, digitally speaking. Flagship Consulting offers a digital auditing service, which will give you a clear perspective on what you can do with digital, and what digital could do for you.

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Did you know that a quarter of all charity funds in the UK are now raised online and via mobile? That’s over £2.4 billion annually.

55% of people who engage with a charity on social media are likely to take action. Is your social media activity engaging with the right target audiences on the right channels?

Is your website ready to connect? Is it optimised for mobile in 2017?

Is your email list up to date? Are you using it to full effect (email can generate a third non-profit fundraising revenue)?

Let us help you find out.

Viral Campaigns

The ‘ALS Ice Bucket Challenge’ - which saw participants upload videos of emptying buckets of iced water over themselves in the summer of 2014 - funded a major breakthrough in Motor Neurone Disease research.

‘Movember’ - which involves men growing facial hair throughout November, and sharing photographs of their progress - is aimed at encouraging more men to be aware of the need to check for testicular cancer. Fundraising is not as important in this campaign as raising awareness, but donations nonetheless are received, and go towards male-specific cancer research.

The #nomakeupselfie trend began independently of charities, but was swiftly co-opted by Cancer Research. The phenomenon saw people (predominantly women) post photographs of themselves without makeup (often with a donation link or number included in the post). Despite being condemned as shallow ‘slacktivism’ by many, it raised £8 million in six days.

Photo by - slgckgc - flickr.com

Our tailor made non-profit audit

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Created by our Chairwoman and resident industry expert ‘Diana Soltmann’ - in conjunction our Head of Digital ‘Kevin Mullaney’ - our audit will reveal all you need to know to get your online fundraising strategy ready for a record 2017.

Why not give Kevin a call to find out more on:

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