Survey – “Why do people outsource?”
Should I outsource my online fundraising in the same way I outsource my direct mail or telephone fundraising?
It’s an intriguing question and one that hjc wants to help nonprofit organizations to answer in a way that helps them do a better job with their supporters. For decades, nonprofit organizations have been outsourcing the creative, tactics, strategies and execution of direct mail and telephone fundraising and campaigning. The reasons for hiring a traditional direct response agency can be many: better skill sets, results, and lower costs. (Click here to take the survey now) or
Of course, that’s not always the case because traditional direct response practitioners are reasonably common and nonprofit organizations can carefully, and successfully, build their own internal teams.
But in our 18 years of online fundraising experience we know that it’s very uncommon to have highly experienced online fundraising personnel within a nonprofit organization. Yet why is it, with less skilled people available internally, it’s less common to see nonprofit organizations to outsource their online fundraising than in traditional direct response?
It’s a hard question to answer but one we think has at least two explanations:
1. Anybody can do online. There is a perception in the nonprofit marketplace that you don’t need a lot of past experience to do online marketing and fundraising. hjc believes that as online is becoming so vital to an organization’s fundraising and marketing success, it’s a dangerous assumption.
2. There’s not a lot of money in online right now so let’s not get the best help. In our recent study of donors, the Next Generation of Canadian Donors (http://www.hjcnewmedia.com/nextgencanadiangiving/), it’s obvious that online is intimately tied to the success of traditional channels with EVERY generation of donor using ALL channels. The study points to online being a key connector to the success of traditional channels.
After almost 20 years of helping organizations online, we’re pretty sure it can make a lot more sense to outsource your online fundraising and marketing. To help you make that decision, we’ve created a simple survey that will only take you 5 minutes to fill out. If you fill out the survey, you’ll be eligible for an hour of free consulting from Michael Johnston.
Here’s survey draft: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CLK2CWY