The IOF Convention, which takes place over 3 days in July each year at the spectacular Barbican Centre in London, is Europe’s biggest fundraising event of the year. 

It’s a fantastic opportunity for professional fundraisers to learn from their peers and share their latest insights through a series of expert presentations, panels and workshops. 

It’s also a chance for us to check in with how the sector as a whole is tackling the current charity change conundrum.

With this in mind, we assembled an intrepid team of Signallers to attend this year’s event and find out what the burning issues are for fundraisers in 2019. 

Here are the four talks (or themes) that stood out:

‘Digital transformation: another way’  

Mistie Roskelly, Client Service Team Leader

Within the charitable sector, 75% of leadership have an intent to implement digital transformation, but only 37% have a strategy to implement this. It is clear that digital transformation is a huge area to be addressed in all charities, with many hurdles and blockers in the way. 

Martin Francis Campbell and Ben Nolan are both under a year into their roles in World Vision, but are driving real, tangible digital progression within the charity. Moving on from just the intent to change, they have recognised that true digital transformation cannot be achieved by simply layering a ‘new tech product’ over the top of existing processes and donor journey strategies, and hoping for different results. 

Instead, for example, using new tech products to support new agile online acquisition strategies has brought down World Vision’s cost per email address from £5 to under £1, as well as resulting in improved engagement and timeliness with the supporter.

The key factor to take away for the sector is that there are no longer ‘historical' fundraising products that anyone can be confident will work in perpetuity. Instead, there needs to be a fundamental change in the business model itself, and in every area of a charity, to make digital part of their new fundraising and supporter engagement reality. 

‘Build the plane as you are flying it’

Julie Roberts (Pancreatic Cancer UK) and Nick Burne (RAISETHRU) shared how PCUK used Facebook Ads to recruit over 100,000 leads from cold prospects and double their regular donors. One key theme became clear - if you wait until everything is perfect you will never get off the ground. Instead, their advice was to ‘build the plane as you are flying it’. 

Though a potentially terrifying prospect in the world of aviation, in the world of digital marketing it makes sense. We can never know for certain what will work until we try it, and as Julie pointed out, if a Facebook Ad wasn’t working she could simply just turn it off. Building the plane as you are flying it allows us to test ideas, learn what is working, and adapt or discard what is not.

Legacy acquisition is one of the strongest areas of growth in most charities, however it continues to be the most under-resourced. It is almost seen as a bit of an add-on and often charities don’t even have a dedicated team. A show of hands in the room backed this up, with most people there who worked on legacies also having other roles and responsibilities. 

The speakers from Cancer Research UK and Kew demonstrated that the main reason their programmes have been successful is down to collaboration within the charity, not operating in silos and seeing it as all part of the same supporter journey. 

Putting supporter engagement first - and making ideas happen

Monday’s presentation from WaterAid’s Director of Fundraising and Marketing Marcus Missen was a good example of what people mean when they say "we need to move away from transactional fundraising".

Missen shared how WaterAid have grown their income thanks to two big shifts:

1. Creating a more agile and innovative way of working internally

2. A new marketing strategy that focuses on engaging donors in a more relevant way and reduces the number of donation requests

Internally, they just went for it and created a culture of “if you’ve got an idea, make it happen”, and the result was that 75% of their comms now completely focus on demonstrating progress rather than asking for donations. 

They also talked about two recent campaigns that have performed well. To Be a Girl was their first integrated campaign, and it centred around supporters sharing their own childhood photos alongside their current photo as a way to make the issue more relevant. Their goal was to raise £1m within three months, but it went on to raise more than £2m – the most ever from a stand-alone WaterAid campaign at that point. 

Their #untapped campaign, which launched in 2017, was even more of a success, raising £8.9m (with half coming from UK Aid Match). It centred around telling the story of a community in Sierra Leone as clean water was brought to them. 

It’s heartening to see that charities that they need to learn fast and adapt their methods to cope with the shifting landscape, which is an area we are currently addressing for clients such as the British Heart Foundation.

We also saw an increasing emphasis on more inclusive collaboration across departments. More and more charities are understanding the link between breaking down silos to work more efficiently, and their ability to engage donors in more relevant ways.

From the recent discussions at the Convention, it’s clear that charities should aim to be much braver when trying out new ideas. They don’t need to be perfect the first time, as long as they are continually testing, learning and adapting, looking at what works and what doesn’t, and acting on this data. 

Of course, this won’t mean overnight transformation for most charities. But it’s great to see that making small steps in the right direction can lead to significant success.

4 key takeaways from the IOF Convention 2019

The burning issues for fundraisers in 2019. 

We assembled an intrepid team of Signallers to attend this year’s IOF Convention to find out what the burning issues for fundraisers in 2019. 

Four key takeaways from the IOF Convention 2019 | Signal Blog

In April this year, myself and three other (p)lucky adventurers from Signal set out on the challenge of a lifetime - trekking along the Great Wall of China, where it meanders through many miles of remote villages circling Beijing.

Signal China trekkers, L-R: Karen Wyatt, Lakshmi Balakrishnan, Graham Duffield and Leah Munting.

We prepared ourselves for what was billed as a mental and physical battle between man and the man-made. We were to conquer the impenetrable Wall, with its incessant steps, staggering climbs, demanding descents and searing heat - all to raise money for one fantastic charity - The British Heart Foundation.

Meeting our fundraising target of over £6,100 was no mean feat. We’d been frantically raising money since the previous August. As mentioned in the article I wrote during this time, we did everything we could to encourage donations, including organising raffles, gin tasting evenings, auctions, street collections and bake sales. 

So as we departed Heathrow, we felt lighter knowing we’d smashed our target, raising over £7,900 for BHF. Signal also covered the cost of entry, bringing the final total to £14,177.

Over 10 hours in the sky and 8,000km later, we finally landed and got some rest, having leapt seven hours in the future. We woke up for the first day of our trek jet-lagged and nervous. 

The iron sky outside belied the forecasts of sun, but our backpacks were bulging with wet layers, dry layers and any other layer we thought we could possibly need. So with our belongings stowed safely, we journeyed by bus to our first stop at Jinshanling. 

This is the question everyone asked us afterwards. But it hasn’t been easy to answer.

There are few words that can capture the sheer scale and awe of peering up and seeing the Wall rising in front of you. Thoughts flitted through my own mind about the impossible number of bricks, the feasibility of the challenge itself and just how infinitesimal I felt. 

Clambering up those first steps and emerging through the first watchtower, all descriptive abilities melted away as I looked down and traced the structure with my eyes, seeing it snake away from my feet, hugging the mountain spine and flowing into the endless horizon.

Then the terrain bought us back with a bump. 

We were of course prepared for there being a lot of steps. Extensive scouring of the internet had told us that much. We were sort of okay with the hills too. However, we were not prepared for steps that were sometimes higher than our knees! 

These would often appear entirely at random, hidden on a downhill or camouflaged in an uphill flight – essentially whenever we were just able to get a pace going. Our guide told us later on that this was a deliberate tactic to slow down invading armies from the North (along with us 21st century trekkers).

Sometimes there were no steps but this didn’t bring much relief, as we were faced with smooth stone surfaces worn down into a slipperiness by thousands of footsteps over the ages. 

This brought the high possibility of a long and painful roll to the bottom of the slope, so we were often clinging to the sides of the wall, fingernails digging into the brickwork to stop us from falling.  

We experienced isolated and unrenovated sections of the wall, which had us picking our way through ancient rubble and fresh undergrowth. This pushed us perilously close to several scary precipices.

(The sign shown above on the right translated to ‘Danger! Do not pass’, which we weren’t aware of until we passed it)

And then there were the climbs! These were unpleasantly frequent. The terrain never failed to tease us, so when we thought we could see the top within reasonable distance, the Wall would inevitably climb upwards to the next mountain crest and then disappear from view. 

Whilst it’s a popular misconception that the Great Wall can be seen from space, at times the ascents were so steep and unforgiving that we were sure it actually must be true. 

But for every moment of chest-heaving, sweat-drenching and heart-bursting uphill exertion, there were so many emotional highs. 

There was the zen-like tranquillity of stepping out from our inn in Gubeikou onto a riverside lined with cherry blossoms, whilst kingfishers darted out, scattering the resident goldfish.

Or when we trekked for over an hour through the dense forest at Mutianyu to get to a particularly remote but original and spectacular section of the Wall, only to find the ladder to climb onto it had gone. 

Together, our team built a cairn of rocks and scrambled, pushed and pulled everyone up to the most breathtaking and overwhelming view.

We dedicated prayer ribbons to family and friends and tied them to the trees to whip in the eternal winds at the top of the Heavenly Stairs.

And after a long day of walking, as the last visitors of the day to the Ming Tombs,  we were able to watch the sunset fall down behind the temples.

We walked for between six to eight hours most days, often not seeing anyone beyond our group. We would mostly hear our own voices, our footsteps, the clack-clack of walking poles, deep breaths and quite often the internal pounding of our hearts.

When we woke up on the final day and headed to Huanghuacheng, we were all a little quieter and more contemplative. Scaling the last peak and taking the last step we celebrated the achievement in the individual ways we’d become accustomed to over the past days with each other; Karen’s singing of ‘On Top of the World’ echoing around, Graham beaming from ear to ear, Lakshmi giving it her all right to the end and me simply contemplating the moment.

Before that finishing descent, standing on top of that ultimate peak and feeling on top of the world, we laughed (and maybe we cried). 

We thought about what we’d done, we thought about our loved ones and we thought about home. We thought about walking and we thought about not walking. We thought about the journey and just how good it was, how far we had come and what we had achieved, for us and for the BHF. It left us all speechless.

As the Tang dynasty poet Wang Zhihuan (688-724 AD) wrote:

But you can widen your view three hundred miles

By ascending a single flight of stairs…

Conquering the Great Wall of China for Charity

A team of adventurous Signal staff took on the challenge of a lifetime in China - for a great cause.

Taking on the challenge of a lifetime for a great cause.

We tackled the Great Wall of China, all to raise money and fundraise for The British Heart Foundation.

Conquering the Great Wall of China for Charity | Signal Blog

https://cellosignal.com/blog/china-charity-challenge-success

The Institute of Fundraising Convention is the largest event for professional fundraisers in Europe - thousands of attendees descend on London’s Barbican Centre at the height of summer for three days of expert presentations, keynotes and panels. Covering the experiences, insights and challenges of charity organisations of all shapes and sizes, it’s a treasure trove of useful information for anyone associated with the not-for-profit sector. 
 
The speakers were diverse and the topics were broad, but we particularly took note of one key takeaway that cropped up again and again in different forms - the idea that moving away from the justification that something ‘has always been that way’ often leads to huge successes. 

We’ll be delving a little bit deeper into some real-life examples of this that were shared during the three days, as well as adding some of our own thoughts on the insights that piqued our interest. 
 
Feeling inspired to challenge the status quo in your own organisation? Here are three ways for you to get the ball rolling.

Status quo challenge #1 - break down internal silos:

The topic of breaking down the long-standing silos between departments was a common theme this year, as our Senior Planner Maxine discussed in her recent post.

There was an underlying message of collaboration, understanding and empathy – the core elements necessary to deliver amazing services to a charities’ beneficiaries - but being applied between internal teams as well as within them. 

For example, the NSPCC’s Ben Ingram (Senior Philanthropy and Development Manager) and Debbie Boughtflower (Head of Planning, Programme and Operations) shared how collaboration across their teams and the introduction of a robust sprint process has enabled them to get quicker decisions from senior management and move faster in response to high value funding opportunities.

Ensuring fundraising and service delivery teams “own and commit to the same language” to describe the work of the charity has helped everyone remember that they’re ultimately working towards the same goals.

A motivated, multi-discipline team can achieve great things because everyone is pulling in the same direction.  So it’s great to see the increased focus on circumnavigating the internal barriers that stand in the way of fundraising success.

Status quo challenge #2 - don’t make assumptions about supporter motivations:

We all know how it important it is to foster long-term relationships with supporters, but it’s equally important to consistently reassess these relationships - remembering that donors are human and that consequently their circumstances and motivations are bound to change. 
 
It’s also key to bear in mind that an organisation’s motivations and concerns won’t necessarily mirror those of their supporters. The National Trust provided a fantastic case study on their recent White Cliffs of Dover appeal that proved this point perfectly. 

According to the National Trust fundraising team, back in the 1960’s their acquisition appeals were driven by the idea that it was better for them to take ownership of the land over a less desirable buyer - a holiday park developer, for example. They considered this angle for their recent appeal (“If we don’t buy it, who will…”) but ultimately opted for something that they felt fit their current motivations better - that of preserving the environment and the wildlife within. 

Interestingly however, when supporters who donated to the appeal were surveyed, it turned out that their motivation was not at all linked to nature preservation. Instead people were driven by what the White Cliffs represented to them, citing emotional memories like childhood holidays, links to their grandparents or the day they arrived in the UK for the first time. 

The British Heart Foundation also shared how they used data analysis to identify and understand the most committed participants of their London to Brighton Off-Road Bike Ride, and then communicate with them as directly and relevantly as possible. 

Despite previously considering professional mountain bikers as the least likely to fundraise, it turned out they were actually raising the most money per head. As a result of providing a better experience for this highly engaged community both in the run up to, and during the event, the charity have achieved an increase in the event’s income from £230k in 2015 to £435k in 2017. 

It just goes to show that not only is audience insight hugely important, it also needs to be an ongoing process - no more relying on outdated assumptions. 

Status quo challenge #3 – change needs to be inclusive and sustainable

Cultural change doesn’t come overnight and it can be tough. On Day 3 of the event, Tom Barker, Head of Digital at the National Trust, compared digital transformation to quitting smoking - you’ve got to really want it, and be prepared to make sacrifices.
 
There’s also a pervasive assumption that everything has to start from the top down, but all changes have to start somewhere and that doesn’t have to mean the CEO. 

Ultimately it’s on the ground where the real change happens, and new processes need to be given space and time to evolve organically through a process of testing and learning. 

It was clear from this year’s Convention that teams and even individuals can absolutely change the way they work to be more inclusive, insight led, efficient and ultimately more successful. We also  saw how reaching out between departments often leads to the discovery that there are many opportunities to collaborate, to share knowledge and to fill in any gaps. 
 
Finally, fundraisers also need to be sure that any plan for implementing change is realistic and sustainable - both for the charity and themselves.  Resilience and self-care is as essential for fundraisers as it is for carers and support workers - all are professions/vocations where others come first as a matter of routine. This is especially important for those fundraisers who care enough to challenge the ingrained status quo of their organisation as well as meeting the income targets they've been set. 

IOF Convention 2018 - challenging the fundraising status quo.

The Institute of Fundraising Convention 2018 - 3 takeaways for charities looking to challenge the status quo.

IOF Convention 2018 - challenging the fundraising status quo

IOF Convention 2018 - challenging the fundraising status quo | Signal Blog

https://cellosignal.com/blog/iof-2018-challenging-status-quo

Okay, we know. It’s the 25th May and we’re guessing there are four little letters you probably never want to hear again, let alone read about. 

You’ve likely lived and breathed GDPR for the past 6 months, with not a day going by without today’s much-hyped deadline and what it means for your supporters’ data on your mind. 

And now, naturally, we’d all like to have a bit of a rest and not think about consent, legitimate interest, personally identifiable information and all the other intricacies of the new laws. 

Well, sorry to break it to you, but dropping the GDPR ball now is the last thing anyone should be doing - especially charities. Today is just the start of the consent process - not the end of it. 

Your charity will have spent a lot of time getting databases in order, policies written and permission granted for communications to existing supporters, but you can’t afford to rest on your laurels now. GDPR will (quite rightly) mean that every individual is more aware of their data rights, and they will be more likely to turn off this consent if their relationship with an organisation gives them reason to do this.

Charities must take this opportunity to leverage the momentum that has built up over the last few months by continuing to improve their long-term supporter relationships.

Understanding supporters better will help charities navigate this brave new world

To achieve this, charities will need to consistently give something back to the supporter, rather than value being a one-way street (ask, ask, ask). You can do this by connecting with supporters about the issues that matter to them most and giving them a strong reason to continue to stay engaged.

Call it what you like; a two-way relationship, stewardship, CRM - it’s the same thing. It all boils down to understanding what your audience cares about and how you can connect with them on a deeper level, and crafting content that reflects that.

Get this right and you’ll create an even stronger relationship than one based on ‘doing the right thing’ and donating. For example, the new supporter relationship could be built on showcasing inspiring, personalised examples of how donations are being used, or finding new ways to share your organisation’s expertise that provide tangible value to the supporter. 

This is a big shift, but a series of steps (some big, some small) is the best way to start. Here are a few ideas that will hopefully be helpful:

1. You’re not going to do this on your own

It’s likely that, in many instances, your charity will need to make changes internally. In the brave new world we live in, supporter engagement shouldn’t be just a job for the fundraising department. Acknowledging this is crucial. 

You’re going to need to break down internal silos and get teams working together across brand, marketing, IT and digital to make this happen. You need to be part of a connected team to make this change, not work on your own. 

The next step is to set a vision and re-evaluate how your success is measured. Prioritise supporter experience as well as income.

Designing better relationships with supporters will mean consent shouldn’t be a barrier. But it also offers much wider benefits - higher engagement and increased satisfaction, for example.

Get this right and the income targets should take care of themselves. 

3. Be practical and pragmatic - work out where to start

Think big, start small, and act fast. Identify the first audience or products that have the most to gain, e.g. regular givers, and test here, before layering into other supporters or products. 

Supporter centricity, stewardship, CRM – they’re all the same thing, and the key to better supporter relationships is the sweet spot between:

Do you have a clear understanding of the parameters of the brand? Do you have quality insight in place which shows what the audience expects and needs? Use this insight and overlap as the basis for your strategy.

Once you know what your supporters need, you have to make sure the content is in place to continually serve them this information. How good is your organisation at gathering this information and, critically, sharing this information? 

What great stories can you share about where donations are going, what tips can you provide to help supporters with their problems? Content forums where people share internally are a great start.

Charities are bound to fail if we try and manage this change with manual data extracts and traditional creative briefing processes.

Embrace the automation technology that will make delivering this supporter-centric approach quicker, easier and more scalable - lots of CRM databases have this functionality. 

7. You’re not going to get this right straight away

Give yourself breathing room to try new things and permission to fail. The key here will be to test and learn from the results quickly.

Set plenty of tests that enable you to figure out the answer in the real world, then make sure you’ve got analytics in place and a team who can quickly huddle around the insights and look for ways to do better next time.

Supporter consent is not a ‘tick box exercise’ that can be dealt with once and forgotten about. We’re talking about living, breathing people whose goodwill can never be taken for granted. It needs to be valued and nurtured long-term. 

The new laws that come into effect today provide a solid foundation to ensure we are dealing with people’s personal data in the right way. But it’s how charities build on these basic guidelines in creative ways that will set them apart and ensure their long-term success.  

Happy GDPR Day! Charities, your big challenge starts now.

Dropping the GDPR ball now is the last thing anyone should be doing - especially charities.

Happy GDPR Day! Charities, your big challenge starts now. | Signal Blog

https://cellosignal.com/blog/gdpr-challenge-for-charities

As well as working with many of the UK's major charities, Signal staff are involved in plenty of our own fundraising efforts.

In the last couple of months, we’ve raised over £450 for WWF by getting in touch with our wild sides for WWF.

And we've volunteered for a number of local charities such as Cheltenham Animal Shelter, CCP (Caring for Communities and People) and Priors Park Edible Garden and Allotments:

But the biggest fundraising efforts of the year are our annual Charity Challenges. Previous years have involved a cycle from Niagara Falls to NYC for Marie Curie and a Peru trek for The Salvation Army.

Here are a few more details about 2017 and 2018’s big challenges.

A massive shout out to our colleagues who went to the northern reaches of Swedish Lapland earlier this year to dog sled over 180km of Arctic terrain, raising over £13k in aid of The Royal British Legion.

They spent five days following a team of huskies through snow-covered forests and mountains, tending to the dogs and battling the elements in temperatures ranging from -5°C down to -45°C.

Signal covered all the costs for the trip, so every penny the team raised went directly to funding The Royal British Legion’s important work. The charity provides financial, social and emotional support to the millions who have served and are currently serving in the British Armed Forces, and their families.

This summer, myself and three of my Signal/Brightsource colleagues (Lakshmi Balakrishnan, Karen Wyatt and Graham Duffield) were chosen at random for another amazing challenge:

“You'll conquer the imperial masterpiece of the Ming dynasty and test yourself on one of the world's most iconic structures. Starting four hours north of Beijing this challenge takes you on a series of upwards climbs of over 10,000 steps over the course of a week, covering approximately 50km over five days.”

Yes, we'll be taking part in a once-in-a-lifetime trek along the Great Wall of China in April 2018, to raise funds for the British Heart Foundation.

Coronary heart disease is the UK’s single biggest killer, and there’s a seasonal spike as we head into the winter months.

It’s no surprise that each member of the team has been affected by heart disease in some way making it a cause really close to our hearts (no pun intended) and one worth striving for. We’ll be keeping this in mind as we try and exceed this fundraising target to help the BHF as much as possible and certainly during the trek itself.

Signal has covered the costs of the trip, leaving us with a fundraising target of £6,190. The good news is that we’re already over 40% of the way there, which we’ve raised by:

Inviting local restaurant The Coconut Tree to come and cook a taste of the East for us in in our Cheltenham office

Providing a tuck shop and making homemade tablet, biscuits and cakes

Leveraging our prize draw expertise by organising raffles and competitions

Standing outside in during a wet, cold and eventful weekend to collect change for the British Heart Foundation. Alongside donations, we ended the weekend up one umbrella and one marriage proposal!

During the same weekend, a gentleman had a heart attack and collapsed around 50ft away from one of the team. There was a brilliant response from the medical staff on the scene and trained members of the public, but it reminded us exactly why we’re undertaking this huge challenge, and certainly spurred us on to head out again the next day with renewed energy:

Over the coming months we have lots more planned so we can raise as much as we can for this excellent cause, including ringing in Chinese New Year in February.

If you’re feeling generous in the meantime we’d really appreciate your support:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bhf-china-trekker

Charity Challenge 2018: Trekking the Great Wall of China

Find out about our 2018 China Trek in aid of British Heart Foundation as well as some of our other fundraising efforts during 2017.

Fundraising initiatives by Signal staff in 2017 and a big challenge for 2018.

Charity Challenge 2018: Conquering the Great Wall of China

Charity Challenge 2018: Trekking the Great Wall of China | Signal Blog

https://cellosignal.com/blog/charity-challenge-2018

Update: On 29.11.2017 Facebook announced it will no longer charge a 5% fee on donations to charity organisations.

Facebook has recently made a suite of game-changing tools available to fundraisers in the UK and 15 other European countries. These include a donation button which enables users to send money directly to charities, in three taps or less, without leaving the platform.

Since launching in the US in 2015, the tools have helped raise millions of dollars for charitable causes, and European nonprofits are already seeing significant benefits. Save the Children Spain recently told the International Fundraising Congress that it has seen a 26 percent increase in digital giving in just three weeks of trialling the tools.

But can the all-conquering social platform be trusted to have charities’ and donors’ best interests at heart over the long-term? After all, charities are increasingly focusing on retention and building lasting relationships, and relying on a third party platform is unlikely to give them enough data, or control over the supporter experience to enable this.

It’s definitely worth asking what Facebook stands to gain from offering the tools, other than positive PR and a nice warm fuzzy feeling for founder Mark Zuckerberg. The company claims that its hefty 5% cut from each donation is purely to cover costs, but we know that the UK’s most prominent digital giving site JustGiving earns around £20m a year by charging a similar amount.

Like competing online powerhouses Google and Amazon, Facebook wants to keep users within their own walled garden so it can serve them highly profitable targeted ads. So clawing back some of the traffic it sends to third party donation platforms like JustGiving would also be a win, especially at a time when Google is aggressively pushing its AMP format.

It also seems probable Facebook will use any data it collects from donors to its advantage as far as possible. And if Facebook becomes the go-to place for supporting causes, there’s likely to be an increase in charity ad spend in order to compete for people’s hearts and minds.

Regardless of how much Facebook stand to gain, it’s clear that charities can benefit for from embracing the new tools, even if a 26% increase in donations turns out to be a short-lived, early adopter advantage.

Let's start by taking a deeper look at what Facebook is offering for charities, individual fundraisers and supporters. Then we'll consider the pros and cons for charities in more detail.

Eligible charities first need to register with Facebook. Once verified, their Facebook Page will display the new donation button. Charities can also use the donation button in link ads, and Facebook Live video broadcasts.

The new tools aren’t just open to charitable organisations. Individuals seeking to raise money for good causes can also set up their own fundraising campaign via the charity’s Facebook page. (Take that, JustGiving!)

If unsure which charity to support, users can also click on the ‘create fundraiser’ option in the left-hand sidebar of their homepage, or the ‘raise money’ button which can be found in the new fundraisers section.

Individuals will then be given a list of charities to choose from. Other than UK charities showing above those from other countries, it’s not clear how this list is ranked - it isn’t alphabetical or by number of Page likes - but charities may be prioritised based on revenue generated so far. It’s probable that Facebook will tinker with their own ordering algorithm for this list, as they do with everything else.

There is obviously an advantage to being one of the first few results if people are unsure who to fundraise for, but those who already have a charity in mind can easily search for them. UK charities who have already signed up include WWF, Save The Children and Unicef.

When individuals share their fundraising page, the donation button will appear in their friends’ News Feeds. In our initial tests, friends also received a notification directing them to the status update. Individuals can add the button to Facebook Live broadcasts too.

So how does it work for those making a donation? The donation button allows people to make a donation in just a few taps (or clicks). However, for the first donation they make via Facebook, people will need to give the company their financial details, and, if they want to add Gift Aid, their physical address. Facebook saves these details for each user, making future transactions extremely simple.

As part of the donation process, people will be asked if they want to sign up to the charity’s email newsletter.

People who begin a donation but don’t complete it will be repeatedly reminded in their News Feed. In a similar vein, people who begin (but don’t complete) setting up a fundraising page will receive a reminder. In addition, individuals will also receive a message from Facebook two weeks before their birthday, asking them to consider setting up a birthday fundraising campaign.

Facebook is expert at these kind of nudges, and they are likely to help increase donations in the short term at least. If this is overdone, however, it could start to feel all too similar to some of the ‘traditional’ fundraising techniques that have negatively affected people’s perceptions of charities in recent years. And like repetitive banner ads, people may just learn to ignore them.

Although fees are currently waived in a bid to encourage UK charities to sign up, a 5% fee will apply in the near future, as it already does in the US. Facebook says this fee is to cover payment processing and other operational costs, rather than to boost its ever-growing ad revenue (which increased by 45% in Q2 2017).

This means that for every £10 donated plus £2.50 Gift Aid, charities will receive £11.87. As can be seen from the below diagram (based on figures from Money Saving Expert), this is at the high-end compared with other online giving platforms. But it seems to be cleverly positioned to marginally undercut the UK’s most prominent digital giving platform JustGiving, who take 5% per transaction fee and card-processing fee of 1.25% plus a monthly subscription fee from charities. As mentioned above, JustGiving are a for-profit organisation who earn £20m a year from these fees, so it seems unlikely Facebook won’t also benefit financially, conceivably far in excess of £20m a year.

Facebook is still the most used social media platform

Facebook’s scale and ubiquity is a big plus for charities who want to reach as wide an audience as possible, and may justify the fees involved. According to eMarketer, it is the biggest social media platform both in the UK (32.5 million active monthly users) and globally (2bn active monthly users).

Ofcom’s 2017 Adults’ media use and attitudes report shows that Facebook users span all ages, with more users in the over 65s demographic this year than ever before. And while EMarketer’s stats also show that teens and young adults are increasingly migrating to Snapchat and Instagram, the percentages are still relatively small. It’s also worth considering the findings of Third Sector’s Donating Trends in the UK report from earlier this year, which showed that 16-24 year olds are still the most likely age group to visit a charity’s page on the platform. With virtually every charity now vying for the attention of younger audiences, has Facebook just handed the sector a gift-wrapped opportunity?

The company’s reach is actually wider than the main platform alone. Instagram is owned by Facebook and shares the same advertising infrastructure, so we may see a native donation button become available to nonprofits there in the future. And by co-opting some of Snapchat’s most popular features such as Stories, and acquiring challenger apps such as popular teen messaging app tbh, Zuckerberg’s company has so far successfully maintained its dominance across social media users of all ages. Ofcom’s findings confirm this, with eight out of ten UK social media users considering Facebook their main social media profile.

We know that when it comes to online transactions, the fewer steps involved the better. Whether its for charity or ecommerce, the more barriers in the way of making a payment, the greater the likelihood people won’t complete a donation.

And the fact is that charities’ own sites have limited success in converting visitors into donors. According to 2017’s M + R Benchmarks report (which surveys 133 US nonprofits) the average donation page on a charity’s website converts 18% of visitors and the average charity website only converts traffic to donations at 1.2%. So just a small reduction in friction can potentially lead to a significant increase in revenue.

An increase in fundraising activity within Facebook is also likely to lead to advanced targeting opportunities becoming available through custom audiences and lookalike audiences. For example, charities are likely to be able to target their Facebook ads towards an ever-expanding group of users who are regular donors or who regularly engage with fundraising posts by either liking, commenting or resharing.

Retargeting these kinds of influential groups for future campaigns could become a new form of outreach strategy for fundraisers. The more these groups respond to promoted content, the more free organic reach they are likely to generate in the News Feed, not to mention that all important social proof.

It’s tempting then, given the above advantages, to see Facebook’s donation button as the answer to charities’ prayers. But there are also reasons to proceed with caution.

Do people trust Facebook enough to give them their details?

It’s important to remember the caveat that this friction-free promised land depends on people getting over that first hurdle of adding their debit/credit card details and home address.

Whether people are willing to do this or not ultimately comes down to how trusting people are of Facebook, which already holds a great deal of data about us and our behaviour and has a chequered history in its approach to users’ privacy. Recent controversies over fake news, inflated claims about video and advertising engagement results, and its role in influencing the US presidential election certainly won’t help.

However, while many will remain cynical about Zuck & co’s true intentions, the ongoing success of the donation button in the US, with $17m raised through the platform so far to help people affected by Hurricane Harvey, suggests that a lot of people are willing to hand over yet more personal info for what they consider to be the greater good.

It’s also arguable that a dedicated donation page with PayPal or ApplePay integration would potentially have even less friction, but that depends on people having a pre-existing PayPal account with one-click payments enabled, or an iOS device with Touch ID (and eventually Face ID) configured. Again Facebook’s breadth is likely to give it an advantage over standalone payment platforms which require a separate account or are limited to a specific operating system.

This is where charities need to be crystal clear about their fundraising strategy. Despite all the potential advantages we’ve covered, defaulting to Facebook as a source of donations could mean charities miss out on valuable data and the ability to build a long-term relationship with supporters.

The dilemma charities face is analogous to that of news organisations, who have had to decide whether the benefits of Facebook’s natively hosted Instant Articles outweigh the loss of direct communication with their readers.

With this in mind, let’s look at all the limitations of the donation tools as they currently stand:

One-size-fits-all donation sign-up form and receipts, with no option to customise - meaning less opportunity to nudge donors towards specific actions

Lack of customisation of the UX - Facebook controls this and can change it at any time

Minimal data - charities will only receive the donor’s Facebook user name and an email address (if they choose to sign up to their email list). They will not be informed of the user’s location, address or phone number - limiting the channels on which charities can contact them for further donations

Competition is likely to be fierce amongst nonprofits. A uniform UX means a level playing field for all charities, which may be an advantage for smaller charities, but too much choice for supporters can also result in inaction. Facebook has also recentlyenabled personal fundraising in the US, which enables any individual to ask their friends for money (within some specific categories). This could also open the door to more sophisticated Kickstarter-style crowdfunding campaigns in the future. It’s possible users could develop ‘donation button blindness’ if fundraising activity become too commonplace as a result.

It’s easy to default to either an overly optimistic of the potential of Facebook’s new fundraising tools or an overly cynical view of why the company introduced them in the first place.

Like Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg has sought to balance concerns about his own and Facebook’s disproportionate level of power and influence with highly public displays of philanthropy. So keeping charity partners on side is likely to be a priority for his PR team. Having said that, Facebook will always put its own interests (and those of its shareholders) over other brands, as demonstrated by its recent test of a separate News Feed for content from business Pages, that could dramatically reduce traffic for all publishers.

Charities would be wise to bear in mind the rocky ride news organisations have had with Facebook’s Instant Articles format. It’s important not to lose sight of the importance of their own online platforms and the ability this gives them to create a nuanced experience for their supporters that encourages long-term engagement.

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