111 Million Reasons

News Alert:  An estimated 111 million people plan to use the web to donate to nonprofits this holiday season (Nonprofit Times).

A Minnesota nonprofit fundraising campaign, GiveMN, raised a remarkable $14 million via the Internet with its 24-hour “Give to the Max Day” event on November 17. The money, donated by 39,000 people, will support 3,400 Minnesota nonprofits, reports the Foundation Center.

Between now and the end of the year, we will be asked by every charity we know—and many we don’t—for our gifts—or investments, as I prefer to think of them.  (After all, there is no quid pro quo with gifts; we send a thank you and nothing more is expected to the giver.  But with an investment, the giver expects to see a return and the charities should be expected to demonstrate that return.)

According to Convio, preliminary results from their research on people’s plans for holiday giving show that “61% of online consumers plan to give online this year, up from 51% last year—that’s more than 106 million Americans giving online in the last 4 weeks of the year.”  (Connection Café, Posted by Tad Druart)  To many nonprofits, this will sound like good news.  So, to put some parameters on that potential good news, Convio’s 2008 eNonprofits Benchmarks Study found that the average online donation in 2007 was $57.

I know this all sounds wonderful—and it is.  But I wonder and I worry about the influence of technology on what has always been a high-touch task for nonprofits.  Will technology advance philanthropy the way it has politics (think of the role texting, tweeting and photo sharing played in the days after the most recent Iranian election;  the Dean and Obama presidential campaigns;  and the most recent Afghan election where a candidate had James Carville as his political consultant and created an “Obama-like” website)?  And despite the proliferation of sites like boardnet.org and volunteermatch.org, being successful at finding and keeping good board members and other volunteers remains, in the end, a high-touch, face-to-face activity.  Technology can definitely make the introductions, but it cannot make the assessment of the match and it should not make the ask.

At this juncture, the same must be said of technology’s role in philanthropy:  it can make the introductions—as Give to the Max Day surely did for many—but it cannot do the cultivation, the relationship building or the big ask.  Nor should it.

So, let’s get excited about what the end-of-the year flurry of giving—on-line and off—might bring for many nonprofits.  But when the new year starts, let’s return to the basics and build those relationships that will perpetuate and sustain continued—and we would hope growing—investments in the important work of our nonprofits.