Through our ongoing video series, our founder and CEO Brent Grinna will be exploring the emerging methodology of social donor management (SDM) and how it can streamline your work in advancement to make you (and ultimately your team) more efficient and productive.
Watch the video below to learn about the second pillar of SDM: Understand.
If you missed it, check out the first pillar of SDM in Ep 2: Build. Then check out the last video in the series, Ep: 4: Ask!
FULL VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Engagement = giving. It’s science, right?
It actually is science. In a 2002 study, the MIT Alumni Association found that “involved alumni are more likely to give.”
But back in 2002, the definition of “involved” was limited to club leadership, reunion attendance, and volunteerism. At that time, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was a freshman in high school, and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman was getting his professional network off the ground.
In a social world, the definition of “involved” needs to evolve. It’s now possible for donors to engage—and be involved—through social channels. But what hasn’t changed is the clear correlation between engagement and giving.
That MIT study showed that reunion attendees are 30% more likely to give than non-attendees. That’s pretty good.
But EverTrue data shows that Facebook fans are 90% more likely to give than non-fans. Yes, 9-0. That’s amazing!
However, we’re finding that most educational institutions spend a lot of staff time and resources tracking event attendance and reunions. But they don’t spend an equal amount of time measuring social engagement…and that’s a missed opportunity.
If you work in fundraising but you aren’t keeping track of who’s engaging with you on Facebook, it would be like hosting reunion and not taking attendance. Who does that?!
So get started by asking yourself the following question:
What was the participation rate of our Facebook fans last year?
If you can’t answer that simple question, you’re missing out on an important source of donor intelligence. It can be answered with some manual digging, and social donor management software can help streamline the process.
By combining internal and external data, you can quickly deliver a high return on investment for your social media efforts.
So MIT, when you’re looking to update that study…call me.
Have questions? Insights? Want to learn more about social donor management? Join our next Social Donor Management Tutorial!