4 ways nonprofits can adapt to the digital age

Digital evolution has been the key for industries across the spectrum in the last few years and non-profits are no different. Auctria, providers of efficient and affordable tools to help nonprofits and other organizations run successful fundraising auctions, discuss the four main strategies for a successful transition into digital evolution.

What is digital evolution

Simply put, digital evolution is “the adoption of digital technology to transform services or businesses, through replacing non-digital or manual processes with digital processes or replacing older digital technology with newer digital technology.” So, how can nonprofits leverage the power of digital evolution and stay relevant in these digital times.

Find the right tools

In an ever-expanding digital world, ‘business as usual’ cannot be the norm. Businesses and nonprofits need to adapt, innovate and adopt new technologies to stay in the game. Over the years, non-profits have used direct mail as one of their primary strategies to reach an audience. However, the last few years has seen a decrease in direct mail and increase in email, especially due to economic reasons. According to an article in the Harvard Business review, direct mail may have a higher response rate than email, but it also costs 100 times more. Nonprofits are also capitalizing on the ability of emails to funnel people towards a relevant landing page such as the website or donations page. Through statistics, they can also analyse how many people opened an email, how many clicked on the links and how many stayed on a particular page and for how long.

Similarly, nonprofits are moving towards the blogging environment as ink and paper newsletters require funds to develop, design and print. On the contrary, there are no constraints when it comes to blog design, leading to stunning imagery and engaging content.

Know your community

In digital evolution, it is imperative that nonprofits create a community platform in which the changemakers discuss, collaborate, and facilitate decisions. This community, at large, turns into a learning platform with a huge repository of knowledge and resources with different perspectives and opinions.

However, it is important for the non-profit to understand the pulse of the community it operates in.

Ignite your online presence

In the past, non-profits only depended on their volunteers and stakeholders using personal networks or friends and family to donate or participate in causes. But with the power of social media, they do not have to knock on doors anymore. Supporters can harness the power of social media to create awareness about the cause while encouraging the online world to donate and support. This online peer-to-peer fundraising is quick, efficient, and dynamic. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic too, most businesses and nonprofits have realized that being in the same room to conduct business is overrated. While face-to-face conversations do help, social media and the online presence can be leveraged for the same result or something more profitable.

Furthermore, the digital data and analytics from social media can provide excellent insights into where your non-profit is lacking or where it is winning the game!

Experiment

Experimentation and optimization means one thing for non-profits: introducing a variable or concept to make a process better than it was before. It is important to note that the donor lifetime value is based on a simple formula:

New donors x Donation frequency x Average donor value

Thus, running experiments that focus on increasing any of these factors (or all three simultaneously) can ensure a huge growth. This experiment can be in marketing, website optimization, field work, donor and stakeholder engagement or more.

For more information on how nonprofits can leverage the power of digital evolution, contact Auctria today!