Insamlingsforums andra dag inleds av Sophia ”Puff” Story och Bryan Miller som tar oss med på en resa i digitala nyckeltrender och deras betydelse för insamling och givande. Vi passade på att ställa några frågor inför deras medverkan på Insamlingsforum.
Which digital trend would you say has had the most impact on charities in the last decade?
The decade from 2010 to 2020 has been an incredibly exciting period, as across the world we’ve seen an amazing transformation in the ways people engage with digital channels, digital content, and each other. Lots of things have contributed to this, but if I had to choose just one related trend with the biggest impact on charities I’d say it’s the adoption and evolution of Social Media.
2010 was just three years after Facebook launched to the general public and there was much excitement as the number of active Social Media users world-wide passed the 500 million mark. Over the decade since we’ve seen active user numbers grow to 3.8 billion, meaning that almost half of the world’s population now use some form of Social Media*. From Sweden to Somalia this has transformed everything from how friends and families share memories, experiences, and news to how commercial brands and charities promote themselves.
The growth and maturing of Social Media has impacted on charities in countless ways, from offering new and very different supporter engagement opportunities to enabling new forms of peer-to-peer fundraising. Facebook alone passed $2 billion raised through its fundraising tools in September last year, with half of that raised through birthday fundraisers. And Social Media is continuing to evolve as new platforms like TikTok and Twitch emerge, attracting different types of audience and offering different types of opportunities.
If you could give one piece of advice to charities that want to step up their digital game, what would it be?
Ensure that you really have your digital foundations ready before you shift your focus to new things that have yet to prove their value to charity marketers and fundraisers. By which I mean having a well designed website with active conversion rate optimisation, and automated, supporter-relevant digital communications in place before you invest time and money on new opportunity areas like voice applications and chatbots. With a strong foundation in place you’re more likely to correctly identify the most effective ways for your organisation to step things up and far more likely to deliver real added value through new things that you do test.
What’s the main thing the delegates will take away from your two sessions at Insamlingsforum 2020?
Through our sessions we’re aiming not only to explain and demystify emerging digital opportunities, but also to set these in the context of more tried and tested digital activities. In this way we hope that everyone attending our sessions will leave not just informed and excited about new things they might be able to try, but also far better equipped to see through the hype surrounding many of these and to prioritise the ones most relevant to them and their organisation.
