Digital strategies for Charities & Non-Profit organisations
Parachute Digital works exclusively for not-for-profit organisations and charities to make sure they achieve their income targets and cause outcomes – we do this using digital channels.
We are digital fundraising folk.
We are digital campaigners.
We are digital marketers.
The way we tie these 3 things together – and what we advocate to the charities we work with – is through a philosophy of valuing every supporter, not just the financial ones.
Generating income and donor acquisition
If you are responsible for Appeal income, we have a track record of delivering $4:$1 ROI’s. We can find ways to get more money from the visitors who are coming to your website. We ran 3 peer to peer events in 2016, double registrations and acquiring participants for $18 for some fun runs. We can design and build a donation page that will actually convert.
But you may know Shanelle Newton Clapham, our CEO, better for cutting her teeth on the market doing the hardest of all digital fundraising – new donor acquisition. Shanelle has built her reputation on values matching – building a list of supporters for your organisation that truly care about your cause. But amongst the most steely-faced advocates you will still find a huge proportion who do not, for many reasons, choose not to give to the charities that care so much about.
When generating a list of supporters, advocates and prospective donors it is true for almost every charity that only 3-7% of them will ever convert to become a monthly donor. So we build digital strategies that cater to all of the advocates, subscribers and non-financial supporters to galvanise them for action – and nurture them for future support.
Online campaigning
If you’re reading this website, chances are you work in the charity sector or you’re on a board of one. I don’t need to tell you that online campaigning is alive and well in Australia. The environmental and human rights organisations have proved the usefulness of digital campaigning and how valuable your online supporters can be in helping to create some public awareness and support that will effect real change.
We’ve been involved in campaigns for WWF Australia, the Wilderness Society, Oxfam and Surf Life Saving.
There should be one supporter journey that nurtures people that cause about your cause. This journey should include fundraising asks, because you are a charity. But if a supporter shows time and again that they are more inclined to donate their time and energy and voice, then we should accept this with open arms and focus our communications on giving them actions to take that will bring about the change we want to see in the world.
Maybe they will become donors in the future. But they have real value as an advocate and campaigner, so we enable this using digital channels.
Digital marketing, content and storytelling
We believe that every digital marketing strategy should be built on a foundation of content – because if you do that, you can distribute that content via an infinite online distribution network. A content strategy that builds stories, case studies, anecdotes and assets based around your organisations key focus areas, means that digital fundraisers and campaigners can be reactive and nimble when the cause becomes topical or of public interest.
Digital content will also bring a continuous trickle or torrent of new quality supporters into your organisation and cause. People that are actively looking (via Google) for the information you have. Building your digital strategy on content allows these curious folk to find you and for you to engage with them and capture their details to speak with them again – perhaps via remarketing or social media or email. But this is a marketing strategy, not a fundraising one.
So we work across all these digital areas, so that we can be the glue in your strategy, when sometimes internal politics or silos make this kind of one supporter centric view challenging.
Do you need our help?
If you want to meet up and talk about your specific challenges and whether digital is an option for you, contact us to set up a meeting.