A few days ago I posted an article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy about the newly released Wired Wealthy report. I finally had a chance to sit down and read the full report and all I can say it wow. The summary does not do the findings justice. You can download the full report on Convio's website.
This report focuses on donors who have given over $1,000 in the last 18-months through any channel (online, mail, etc...). Demographically, they are baby boomers but they are also extremely web savvy - they spend an average of 18 hours online a week and do most of their basic finances online, including paying bills, making purchases, etc...
My key takeaways:
Your donors can be separated into three groups in terms of how much they want to be engaged online:
1) Relationship Seekers (29%): They WANT to engage with you online. Predictably, they are usually younger and more inclined to spend their free time online
2) All Business (30%): These are the older crotchety donors that just want you to leave them alone after they give you money. They are usually older don't want to receive any online communications beyond a year end gift receipt. They also usually plan their charitable giving a year in advance and are very pragmatic about it.
3) Casual Connectors (41%): This group is the happy medium between the first two groups. They want periodic updates that tell them a charity is using their money efficiently and effectively.
THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED IN TYPICAL WEB 2.0!!!! They aren't going to join the social networks for the most part and only occasionally read blogs (which they will rarely if ever comment on). They do like YouTube though, with more than half of respondents having watched at least one video on there. This actually makes sense to me - they are busy people and probably aren't sending their free time galavanting around online.
However...Relationship Seekers and Casual Connectors are looking for a more inspiring experience on your website. You website rarely exceeds their expectation, which are very modest to begin with. They are interested in reading stories about the successes of your organization. What this tells me is that this is a great opportunity to subtly utilize technologies such as blogs or video as a means of telling your story. Just make sure that its about the STORY and not the TECHNOLOGY. The medium should be an afterthought to the message being conveyed.
Your websites are NOT for the "All Business" audience: They are going to make their gift and then never come back more than once or twice a year. This is actually a good thing, because your website is never going to be good enough for them. They don't want to be connected with you by your site, or engaged or inspired. It's a futile effort. Use your web presence as an opportunity to engage and inspire your other audiences, while also providing a very easy mechanism for the All Business types to visit and make their annual gift.
Email: Lots of opt-in levels: All of your email should be anticipated, personal and relevant. 75% of your wealthy donors think you send them too much email. If you give them the opportunity to tell you HOW they want to be communicated with, they will appreciate it. There should be different levels between opt-in or opt-out. This them the opportunity to sign up for news or challenge alerts, success stories, end-of-year receipt, etc... It's OK to email them a lot if they tell you to but its NOT OK if they haven't opted in. Also, NEVER look up a donors email address in an outside database if they haven't given it to you - its a big time no-no.
Show tangible and ongoing results: The things that keep your Relationship Seekers and Casual Connectors coming back to your site throughout the year are the opportunity to seek the results of their donation. Show them what their money has bought and update it on a regular basis.
Segment for maximum results: Whereas some organizations filter higher-end donors out of their e-communications plan entirely, this study clearly shows that's the wrong decision. Instead, create a special e-communications plan built specifically for their needs and desires.
The report has great recommendations for next steps that charities and organizations should take to enhance the online experience of their wealthy donors. It really is an extremely valuable read for anyone working in fundraising to see the direction things are going.
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