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E-philanthropy: The Challenges of "Donate Now"
"Internet giving represents less than 1/3 of 1 percent of overall individual giving--or roughly 33 cents per $100 donated last year."
--Mark Rovner, "E-philanthropy: Still More Questions Than Answers"
3rd e-Philanthropy Conference, March 4, 2002
There was something about the general tenor of the 3rd e-Philanthropy Conference in McLean, Virginia, that brought to mind Mark Twain's quip, "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." Twain penned this particular phrase in 1897, 13 years before his actual death. He still had many good years of writing and speech making ahead of him, as well as the growth of a personal reputation that would ultimately produce all sorts of hyperbole. (Hemingway, for instance, said about Huckleberry Finn, "All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before.")
In McLean, skepticism surrounding the phenomenon of "e" was palpable, and yet, clearly any news of its death would have struck the assembled crowd as exaggerated. Like many Internet phenomena--broadband, e-learning, WebTV--e-philanthropy exists in a time before its time. But there seems to be little doubt its day will arrive, and the impact will be felt for a long time to come. An Independent Sector survey (http://www.independentsector.org/PDFs/Sept11_giving.pdf) suggests as much as 5 percent of donations to September 11 causes were made over the Internet.
Interestingly, the Independent Sector survey indicates that 80 percent of post-September 11 donors had never made a donation to a charity or nonprofit over the Internet before, suggesting that in circumstances involving great urgency--like disaster relief--the Internet may already be playing a significant role as a donation vehicle. But, as various speakers at the conference illustrated, there are key challenges to overcome before anyone will be tempted to look back at the birth of e-philanthropy and say, "There was nothing before."
Who and How
The biggest challenge faced by e-philanthropy may simply be time. As part of the conference's opening panel, Mark Rovner, senior vice president of Craver, Mathews, Smith and Company, put forth two hypotheses related to online giving. First, he point out, "The real e-giving generation may still be too young to drive." The logic is simple; the people who are most comfortable online are more interested in Xbox than charitable giving. The rising generation of young adults is not only comfortable doing just about everything online, but it is also comfortable with digital transactions of all sorts--from ATMs to eBay. The Internet as a tool for giving and volunteering will be a natural.
Second, Rovner hypothesized, "Most online giving is an indirect product of other fundraising, marketing, and communications activity." Data from a recent survey by Cravers, Matthews, Smith, and Company suggest that online giving transactions rarely happen in isolation. Acquisition matchbacks, for instance, show that 20 to 50 percent of online donors had received postal mail prior to making their gift.
In general, Web donors show up at an organization's Web site specifically for the purpose of giving, and nearly half give during their first visit. They already know everything they need to know about the organization to know they want to give. The Web is only one part of the e-philanthropy equation and is still heavily dependent on more traditional means of connecting with potential donors.
E(xpansive) Philanthropy
Of course, while discussions of philanthropy tend to center around donations, the scope of philanthropy as a concept extends to all of the ways in which human beings help other human beings. In his keynote address at the conference, Ted Leonsis, vice chairman of America Online, noted that e-philanthropy "dramatically extends the resources that can be brought to bear to meet the real needs of people." Leonsis cited his own experiences working with a young boy, Michael, in the Hoop Dreams program sponsored by the AOL Foundation:
Michael made it through high school and is now in college. No one from his family ever went to school. He needs insight and support from people who understand that experience. That's something I can offer him. Plus, I can get other people involved…. I'm not much help on his math homework, for example, but I can find a friend who can guide him through that.
That kind of involvement could conceivably place heavy demands on people. But the Internet breaks it down into bite-sized tasks and makes it easy to get more people involved.
Leonsis points to several areas in which e-philanthropy can have an impact:
- Increases in total resources (money and time) for charitable purposes
- Stronger cause-based communities
- More--and more strategic--donors and volunteers
- More effective and efficient nonprofit organizations
- More transparency and accountability for the charitable sector
- Better social outcomes from philanthropic investments
But Leonsis cites important challenges that must be overcome:
- Many nonprofits don't have the knowledge or ability to benefit from the Internet and e-philanthropy.
- Most consumers are still unaware of online tools for volunteering, giving, and speaking out.
- The publicly-available information about charities is not sufficiently timely or accessible online--and, worse, it's not sufficiently consumer-friendly to engender genuine, lasting consumer engagement.
Conclusion
In the short term, it may be hard to tout e-philanthropy as a significant driver of donations, but people's increasing reliance on technology and growing expectation to do things immediately, when and where they choose, suggest e-philanthropy is far from dead; this nascent phenomenon shows signs of surviving and maturing in the coming years.
Note
At its Web site (http://www.independentsector.org/e_philanthropy/main.htm), the Independent Sector has made available presentations from the 3rd e-Philanthropy Conference.
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