We kicked off our 2022 webinar programme this month by sharing our top fundraising trends to look out for this year. It was a privilege to host so many great charity professionals, and we look forward to seeing them make the most of the cutting-edge fundraising techniques we discussed.
And if you couldn’t make it to the webinar, we wouldn’t want you to miss out! You can watch 2022’s top digital fundraising trends for charities on demand now, or scroll down to read some of our top tips for the year.
Strengthen supporter relationships with live stream social media
2022 is the year of social media live streaming. Every day, more charities using it to open up two-way communication with their supporters, build engagement and respond to their wants in real time. It’s the perfect way to add more immediacy to a new campaign launch, or show the work your charity is doing up close.
The other big benefit of live streaming is authenticity. Going live can put you on the spot: presenters find themselves going off-script or battling things that go wrong. Even the best public speakers find it tough to come over as polished as a premade social media post. But for your audience, that’s the whole point. It’s a chance for them to connect with you and your brand on a personal level.
This year, make live broadcasts your top social media priority and build engagement like never before.
Fundraising events – the future is hybrid
Virtual events came into their own during the COVID-19 pandemic. With mass participation events restricted or banned outright, organisers and participants went online to keep their sense of community – and charitable donations – alive.
In-person events are now back in many countries, but having seen the power of virtual, organisers and charities are looking to keep benefiting from the lessons they learned. Some of the world’s biggest events, including the 2022 Boston Marathon, are going hybrid permanently – adding virtual elements to their traditional in-person events. By doing so, they’re making their events more inclusive and accessible to people around the world: true fundraising without borders.
This year, the challenge for event organisers is to do something new and compelling with the hybrid event formula, because there’s more to it than just live streaming. Think about how you can make your virtual event as participatory and compelling as being there in person.
Gamers are your new best friends
We’ve been shouting about the power of Gaming for Good for a while, but we expect 2022 to be the year that it gets mainstream acceptance from non-profits. World-famous non-profits such as CALM and Amnesty International now list streaming as a viable virtual alternative to traditional fundraising events like charity runs, but smaller organisations can get in on the action too: South African tech journalist and streamer Grant Hinds has held two successful streaming marathons for homelessness charity New Hope SA.
Gaming for Good is a huge 2022 trend for the same reason as live streaming on social media. Fundraisers can build two-way connections with their supporters and encourage more donations to their favourite charity by thanking them for their support in real time. Gamers have better tools than ever for fundraising through streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube: the GivenGain live streaming widget allows them to fundraise natively in-app and display incoming donations in real time to hype up supporters.
E-mail marketing – retention over recruitment
E-mail marketing might just be your most powerful fundraising tool. Nonprofit-focused CRM platform Salsa estimates that a third of online fundraising revenue comes from e-mail campaigns.
E-mail marketing gets such good results in part because charities can segment their audiences and make customised, personalised appeals for funds. But the data that makes that possible could soon be harder to get: both Apple and Google are bringing in tougher privacy controls, making it harder for charities to track and respond to engagement, and governments around the world are limiting the ways that organisations can collect and use data.
We don’t expect charities to stop using e-mail marketing – it’s still much too good to give up – but at least some will pivot their e-mail strategies from recruiting new supporters to reengaging existing ones. In particular, converting donors into fundraisers will be more important than ever: they can make personalised appeals to their networks much more effectively than you can, and they can massively amplify a charity’s reach.
Companies embrace workplace giving
Experts call it the Great Resignation. Since the height of the pandemic, more employees than ever have been handing in their notice and going in search of new jobs. In response, companies are looking for new ways to attract talent and retain their existing workers – and one of the big ideas they’ve hit on is to ramp up corporate giving.
More than ever, jobseekers are looking for employers that share their values, and building a strong culture of corporate social responsibility is about as big a statement as a company can make about its values. Getting employees involved in workplace giving also massively increases wellbeing and engagement at work.
The most successful workplace giving schemes are the ones that get employees involved directly. Take Barclays Bank in Switzerland, for example, where every couple of months employees choose a cause to support. The bank has an online fundraiser on GivenGain, sharing the fundraising link with the whole company, and at the end, the company makes a donation matching to the cause.
With more companies looking for ways to give back, there will be plenty of opportunities for charities to team up with corporate sponsors this year. But the rise of participatory workplace giving programmes like the one at Barclays means that you don’t necessarily need to reach out to the boardroom: employee ambassadors can do the work for you. Try encouraging and empowering your supporters to fundraise at work.
For more on these great tips, click below to watch our full webinar, 2022’s top digital fundraising trends for charities.
