Fundraising in the Internet Age
A 30% increase thanks to its collaboration with 3rdPLACE.
The organisation
Save the Children is the largest independent international organisation for the defence and promotion of children's rights. It was founded in 1919 and operates in more than 120 countries around the world, coordinated by Save the Children International, NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) with consulting status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
Save the Children Italy was founded at the end of 1998 as Non-profit and began activities in 1999. Today, it is a NGO recognised by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It conducts activities and projects for children living in both developing countries and Italy.
The challenge
Save the Children Italy is financed through donations from individuals, companies and government agencies with the objective of developing and sustaining activities for the defence and promotion of children's rights and to improve their living conditions in Italy and around the world. In this context, it recognised the need to promote its activities and fundraising tools through new digital channels. In fact, Save the Children was already active on the Internet with its own site and targeted communication actions. From the beginning, in 2007, it became clear that the digital channel could play a significant role in creating greater awareness of the organisation's initiatives and, most of all, in making a concrete contribution to fundraising in addition to traditional channels.
The first step towards achieving this objective was to launch a study of the most advanced digital experiences in the non-profit sector and, then, the definition of a communication strategy and actions to take for fundraising over the Internet,
declared Daniela Fatarella, Head of Marketing and Communications for Save the Children Italy.
Initially, promotional activities involved the Distance Support program, which involves a donor's decision to support a child and its community in a determined geographic area. Later, it was also decided to promote the Wish List, a project that provides a symbolic gift for friends and relatives, who receive a charming postcard (printed or by e-mail) while concrete support reaches the children where the Non-profit is present.
These are initiatives that have a very extensive target of reference, since the digital world provides the possibility of opening new opportunities for reaching a broader audience.
The solution
Save the Children immediately understood that, in digital media, creating a visibility plan is only one of the contexts in which to work to attract users and be successful. In fact, it is necessary to work in synergy with many different areas, adapting one's web site to better criteria of usability for the user and exploiting external distribution channels to export and "viralise" the organisation's content and proposals.
We considered it appropriate to adopt a structured approach that provided us a more strategic, long-term vision and, most of all, allowed us to implement an in-depth analysis process
, continued Fatarella.
As early as 2008, this path induced Save the Children Italy to seek a reliable partner that could guarantee the achievement of its objectives in terms of greater visibility and fundraising and, after a careful market analysis, the choice fell to 3rdPLACE, a digital marketing consulting agency, which was the sector organisation with the highest positive rating.
3rdPLACE turned out to be an excellent answer to the need for a structured approach to digital media, demonstrating a high-level strategic vision and the ability to provide operational support as Save the Children pursued its goal. In this latter context, the choice of 3rdPLACE played a key role in placing business analytics at the centre of the monitoring, interpreting and definition of activities to optimise the initiative, from traffic analysis to those undertaken from time to time to increase visibility and user interaction with the Save the Children brand within the site, on social networks and in the blogsphere.
The first phase of the collaboration between the two organisations concentrated on an analysis of the market, the competition and the principal trends. Following the results of the analysis, 3rdPLACE and Save the Children worked together to define the actions to take and the media channels most suitable to guaranteeing an increase in potential contacts. Three main objectives: create awareness, attract users to the site and urge them to take specific actions (almost always fundraising). Today, it is working on designing initiatives to create user loyalty, both within the site, and through social networking tools, which combine well with the content of campaigns. In this regard, the most important actions taken thus far have had to do with the objective of specifically promoting the most important projects: Distance Support and the Wish List. Another project that involves the collaboration between the two companies is EveryOne, which introduces the delicate subject of infant mortality and promotes fundraising at the same time.
Relative to creating awareness, the main activity was that of promoting the message through the planning of print ads, display campaigns, DEM and viral actions on Facebook, where Save the Children is present with both an official page and advertising.
The objective of generating qualified traffic is supported both by the above-mentioned actions and by significant planning of keyword advertising in search engines, in which Save the Children is constantly present. This activity, which also supports fundraising, has allowed us to achieve excellent results in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.
3rdPLACE has also refined aspects related to the usability of the Wish List site, real e-commerce, with particular reference to managing the shopping cart. The same attention has been paid to the creation of a mini-site dedicated to Distance Support, which, today, allows maximising lead generation.
Results and future developments
In 2009, 25.3 million Euros were raised, 26% more than 2008, which were used to expand the organisation's support of minors in Italy and around the world.
An analysis of the various sources of revenue shows that Save the Children Italy most receives funds from individual supporters, which represent 73% of donations (18.5 million Euros) an increase of 42% over the preceding year.
The Internet is the main source of fundraising for the Distance Support and Wish List projects. In the case of long-distance adoption, 85% of donations are made through online subscription, while, for the Wish List, the percentage is about 60%. One interesting fact having to do with the collaboration with 3rdPLACE is the 30% increase of online donations, compared to the preceding year.
We are very satisfied with the results achieved with 3rdPLACE so far and, for this reason, we will rely on their consulting and professionalism to increase the visibility of other important projects such as, for example, emergency funds and charitable wedding favours
, concluded Daniela Fatarella.
In the future, Save the Children is planning to expand its presence in the social networks and to also exploit the mobile channel for the promotion of its charitable fundraising initiatives and to build user loyalty.