rnl crowdfunding index 2018 - donation...

RNL Crowdfunding Index 2018

Benchmarks and Best Practices for Charitable Crowdfunding Campaigns

Based on a review of more than 5,300 crowdfunding campaigns totaling $73 million

© 2018 Ruffalo Noel Levitz | RNL Crowdfunding Index 2018 2

RUFFALO NOEL LEVITZ | FUNDRAISING RESEARCH

SOURCE OF DATA

5,382 CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGNS

299,571 TOTAL GIFTS

250,925 ONLINE GIFTS

$73,719,325 IN TOTAL GIVING

The charitable crowdfunding campaigns in this report were conducted by organizations using RNL Crowdfunding Powered by ScaleFunder from 2013–2018. Donations were primarily to higher education institutions (90 percent) with additional organizations including Greek organizations, public charities, and university hospitals.

CROWDFUNDING: DELIVERING HIGH-IMPACT, PERSONALIZED GIVING TO DONORS ................ 3

PROJECT PERFORMANCE BY TYPE ............................................................................................................... 4

AVERAGE CAMPAIGN DURATIONS ............................................................................................................... 6

FIRST-YEAR RESULTS FOR CROWDFUNDING ........................................................................................... 7

CAMPAIGN NAMING ........................................................................................................................................... 8

CROWDFUNDING ADOPTION AND USES .................................................................................................... 9

IMPACT OF CUSTOM GIVING PAGES ........................................................................................................... 10

CROWDFUNDING BEST PRACTICES .............................................................................................................. 11

Table of Contents



This index provides the results of 5,382 charitable crowdfunding projects conducted through the RNL Crowdfunding Powered by ScaleFunder platform since 2013. The project averages and best practices presented in this index provide a baseline for planning and program improvement as organizations take advantage of this powerful, donor-centric technology.

Crowdfunding is a goal-based, online opportunity for supporters to fund a specific project within a defined timeframe. Pioneered by popular engines like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, crowdfunding has fundamentally changed how new products and ideas are launched in the commercial world. Charitable crowdfunding has become the premier peer-to-peer online giving opportunity. In an April 2018 Ruffalo Noel Levitz survey of higher education giving leaders, over half of fundraisers reported that they conducted some form of crowdfunding in the past year.*

The most successful higher education crowdfunding portals have strong branding and a selection of diverse projects which are presented to donors through coordinated, multichannel communication plans. These best practices maximize the opportunity to market high-impact giving. The best organizations have also turned to crowdfunding to secure general support, often deploying challenges for major givers to energize donors.

Successful crowdfunding projects include student clubs, faculty, alumni, research, and student travel opportunities. An integrated crowdfunding portal with a robust menu of projects allows you to engage your entire organization or campus to support specific programs and ideas, and add excitement to your general support appeals.

*Advancement Leaders Speak: Annual Giving Best Practices, available at RuffaloNL.com

CROWDFUNDING: DELIVERING HIGH-IMPACT, PERSONALIZED GIVING TO YOUR DONORS



To provide averages of crowdfunding campaigns, campaigns were categorized into 10 major areas of support.

PROJECT PERFORMANCE BY TYPE

PROJECT CATEGORIES AND NUMBER OF CAMPAIGNS*

• Alumni: Chapter or reunion campaigns/challenges (344)

• Arts: All non-travel arts (126)

• Athletics: All non-travel athletics for NCAA/NAIA sports (547)

• Giving Day Crowdfunding: Projects supporting Giving Tuesday or institutional giving days through crowdfunding (57)

• Institutional: Campaigns sponsored by the institution for specific projects, needs, or general annual giving (2,034)

• Research: Faculty or laboratory research (143)

• Scholarship: Endowment, fellowship, or student emergency funds (425)

• Student: Clubs, organizations, or other student campaigns (1,032)

• Student Class Gift: All class gift campaigns, including senior gift campaigns (105)

• Travel: Projects that support student, team, or faculty travel abroad or for domestic

competitions, service projects, trips, or conferences (569)

*Some projects crossed into multiple areas, so we placed campaigns according to priority order presented in these category descriptions. (For example, a student travel project was placed in the “Travel” category.) For this edition of the Index, campaigns that had no defined deadline were reported separately in the “Impact of Custom Giving Pages” section.

A SELECTION OF TOP CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGNS IN 2018:

$128,730 MARCH MATCH UP

FRESNO STATE UNIVERSITY

$108,825 HELP AUBURN

STUDENTS BELONG AUBURN UNIVERSITY

$112,055 COLUMBIA ENGINEERING

PI DAY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

$1,194,333 COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF

PARTICIPANTS GIVING CHALLENGE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA

$519,750 RESTORING MIRROR LAKE

BRICK PROGRAM THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

RNL Insights: Given the initial excitement for crowdfunding in support of research, faculty research projects continue to be underrepresented to date. There may be room in your program to better engage your faculty partners. The largest growth in campaigns for 2018 were in the areas of Travel and Institutional campaigns.



Alumni 344 50 $67,954 $4,486 $303

Arts 126 45 $7,114 $4,812 $106

Athletics 547 43 $10,354 $5,353 $144

Giving Day Crowdfunding

57 135 $19,882 $13,783 $118

Institutional 2,034 67 $13,509 $7,051 $130

Research 143 59 $8,280 $5,654 $108

Scholarship 425 58 $14,400 $7,052 $170

Student 1,032 40 $4,404 $3,270 $97

Student Class Gift 105 121 $4,385 $2,352 $72

Travel 569 38 $5,032 $3,700 $119

All Campaigns 5,382 56 $14,128 $5,529 $134

PROJECT TYPE NUMBER OF CAMPAIGNS

AVERAGE NUMBER OF TOTAL GIFTS

AVERAGE CAMPAIGN TOTAL

AVERAGE ONLINE TOTAL

AVERAGE ONLINE GIFT

RNL Insights: For organizations that integrate a crowdfunding platform with offline sources such as major gift challenges, total campaign dollars raised is boosted significantly. As shown in the data, alumni crowdfunding campaigns have the highest percentage of offline giving. Online campaign strategists have told us that it is beneficial to work with major gift officers to amplify campaigns with sponsors and early adopters. On average, student campaigns receive one-third of their contributions through challenges or other offline gifts. Alumni campaigns receive larger average online gifts, with the bulk of donors coming from offline giving.

In 2018, there was significant growth in the areas of food campaigns, student emergency support fund campaigns, and smaller alumni campaigns. This follows increased national awareness about student needs outside of tuition and greater awareness by alumni groups of crowdfunding.

In total, these represent all gifts made online or entered offline for individual gift credit in the RNL Crowdfunding gift feed. Gifts entered prior to campaign official launch (such as seed gifts by early adopters or previously raised funds) bring the average campaign total for all campaigns to $21,922, with the largest impact of this strategy felt by alumni, institutional, and research campaigns. The platform total reached $119 million when including these seed gifts.

It’s not just an online giving portal. It’s a comprehensive, peer-amplified marketing tool to bring major givers and passionate supporters from across your base together. The best programs are bringing gift officers and senior leaders to the table to amplify results.

—Brian Gawor, Vice President for Research, RNL



AVERAGE CAMPAIGN DURATIONSPart of the power of crowdfunding is a defined deadline, which encourages donors to give now. Project owners can specify the campaign deadline. Common choices are 30, 60, or 90 days, with some single-day campaigns. There are some longer campaigns such as student class gift campaigns, which tend to terminate on a special day such as commencement. The following table shares average campaign duration by type of campaign (average number of days by type of campaign from first donation to final donation).

RNL Insights: Student-initiated and travel campaigns tend to be the shortest in duration. Alumni and research campaigns tend to be the longest. It is common to post giving day campaigns up to two weeks prior to the specific date while also crediting some gifts.

Alumni 344 59

Arts 126 53

Athletics 547 38

Giving Day Crowdfunding*

57 11

Institutional 2,034 42

Research 143 51

Scholarship 425 68

Student Class 1,032 41

Student Class Gift 105 69

Travel 569 38

All Campaigns 5,382 45

CAMPAIGN TYPE NUMBER OF CAMPAIGNS CAMPAIGN DURATION AVERAGE

Crowdfunding has served as a critical tool in creating an even greater culture of philanthropy at Duquesne University. Thousands of donors have been acquired, retained, and renewed—taking our donor and dollar numbers to new heights and helping us to identify individuals who can make a major impact on our larger fundraising efforts.

—David Jakielo, Assiatant Director, Annual Giving, Duquesne University

*For results related specifically to $37 million in higher education giving days, see the RNL Giving Day Index at RuffaloNL.com/Papers.



FIRST-YEAR RESULTS FOR CROWDFUNDINGNew adopters of crowdfunding often ask how much they should plan to raise in their first year. Here are the first-year statistics from 120 first-year RNL Crowdfunding partners that launched at least three campaigns in their first year.

RNL Insights: Start with a selection of three to five campaigns for your launch. Begin with projects that have a strong base of potential supporters, as defined by a large confirmed email list within the supporter group. Seek emails from any databases outside your advancement CRM, including departments, athletics, arts ticketing, and affinity groups.

Most institutions spread these initial campaigns across campus areas, but a few begin in a specific area, such as launching with three campaigns in student life or athletics, followed by more campaigns as the campus sees the impact. Your first campaigns should be with sponsors who you know will do a good job promoting the campaigns. Launching your platform with branding communications to your full donor base can be effective after a number of early donors have been recorded.

Using what you learned in the launch process, you can quickly scale to 10 or more projects in the first year.

I now host a monthly lunch-and-learn where student organizations come. We talk about Pony Up. We talk about fundraising in general, but most of all we always talk about philanthropy and why it matters. It’s been a transition to really great organic philanthropy training across the campus.

—Cara Walker, Senior Director, Annual Giving, Boise State University

Projects 8.3 5

Giving Total $83,360 $38,858

Online Giving Total $45,524 $23,188

Total Gifts 525 311

Total Giving Per Project (Online and Offline)

$10,071 $7,771

AVERAGE MEDIAN

While these amounts vary based on strategy, across our new partners in any given year the ROI is very strong. Some institutions included in these totals used different crowdfunding platforms (usually in a very limited manner) prior to moving to the RNL platform.



CAMPAIGN NAMINGWhat are the most common words used in crowdfunding campaign names? This word cloud features the most popular words that appeared in the 5,382 campaigns featured in this study. The word size indicates the relative popularity of the word.

RNL Insights: The most successful campaigns in this study deployed these naming strategies:

• Name the organization or group being supported in their project title.

• Have a creative or witty title that still makes it clear what’s being supported.

• Use active language such as support, help, or send, and mention a challenge in the project title. A good title along with engagement of ambassadors, a clear impact statement, and updates that invoke emotion and immediacy are crucial. Donors want to understand why their gifts matter and will be more likely to respond when they feel a personal connection to the cause.



31%

16%

15%

12%

10%

7%

4%

3%

2%

Giving Day

Crowdfunding—your own portal with multiple campaigns

Crowdfunding—single campaign or a few campaigns

Volunteer ambassadors who contact peers to promote giving

Email solicitation

Social media giving campaign

Customized online giving page(s) for specific appeals

Texting campaign

Targeted digital advertising

Which of these tactics do you feel is most likely to help attract new, first-time donors?

Source: RNL survey of 250 fundraisers, July 2017. Full results available in our forthcoming Advancement Leaders Speak report on digital and millennial engagement to be released at RuffaloNL.com/FundraisingReports.

ATTRACT NEW DONORSNew donor acquisition is a key goal for fundraisers hoping to increase overall participation and build a future pipeline of big givers. We asked a group of fundraisers which of the emerging digital tactics they think will help capture new donors. Crowdfunding scored high on the list.

RNL Insights: Based on an RNL 2017 survey, crowdfunding is tied with giving days as the highest ranked digital vehicle for new donor acquisition by fundraisers.

We find that about 50 percent of our donors that come to crowdfunding are brand new. It is also a great way to highlight things that are going on at campus. Our students are doing really amazing work, so it’s a great way to showcase and build up that alumni pride.

—Ryan Lawrence, Director of UC Berkeley Crowdfunding - crowdfund.berkeley.edu

31%



IMPACT OF CUSTOM GIVING PAGESCreating a crowdfunding experience that is customized to your institution both engages yourdonors more and allows you to tailor the campaign to your needs. But institutions can face technical or organizational roadblocks in creating online giving pages or even updating current pages. That’s why RNL provides its crowdfunding and giving day clients with unlimited custom giving pages on its platform. Called “Evergreen” pages, these portals allow institutions to create pages with custom imagery and text for any appeal. They also work with an institution’s established credit card gift processor and with the process for collecting and recording online gifts that are already in place.

RNL Insights: The most common use of RNL Evergreen pages was to brand a giving page for a specific institutional campaign or fund. Effective uses of pages included creating a custom URL and portal for a direct mail appeal, as well as sending donors to a special page for a scholarship or fund campaign. We suggest that institutions can expand use of these pages, such as for collection of phone or leadership gift officer appeals.

RNL EVERGREEN CUSTOMGIVING PAGE PERFORMANCE

444$10,517,08081 DAYS$12,45452$6,983$177

RNL Evergreen pages created

Total giving

Average campaign duration

Average campaign total

Average number of online gifts

Average online amount

Average online gift

Alumni

Arts

Athletics

Giving day crowdfunding

Institutional

Research

Scholarship

CAMPAIGN COUNT BY TYPE

20535

62262244

60179

Student

Student class gift

Travel



Discover how you can create an energetic, integrated online giving experience

Talk to our fundraising experts about the best strategies and approaches for engaging more donors in your crowdfunding or giving day campaigns. We can share our extensive experience and research on online giving and how to incorporate it into an effective multichannel fundraising strategy.

Visit RuffaloNL.com/Giving | Email [email protected] | Call 800.876.1117

• Launch your platform with three to five campaigns from diverse areas of your organization or campus. The average institution had 11 projects total per year.

• Engage campus partners to suggest, sponsor, and own campaigns. This includes gift officers, faculty, and student and alumni organizations. We reported in our 2017 index that campaigns with four or more ambassadors raise 30 percent more on average.

• Invite donors to the crowdfunding platform via email, and support these invitations with social media messages—84 percent of crowdfunding gifts were activated by email.

• Use challenges and matching gifts from major donors to amplify excitement about campaigns. This allows your major giving team to utilize the excitement of crowdfunding to engage their top prospects.

• Adopt a platform that easily integrates offline giving. This allows your major donors to participate in social network engagement. The highest yielding crowdfunding projects in this study deployed a significant number of challenges and used offline giving.

• Creating custom pages through an integrated crowdfunding portal—with its extreme ease and high average gift—provides organizations desired ROI.

• Get help from a trusted technology partner. RNL has a storehouse of campaign examples and templates that can show you what others have done successfully.

CROWDFUNDING BEST PRACTICES FROM THE DATAThis comprehensive analysis of 5,382 charitable campaigns shows that the crowdfunding channel continues to grow since our 2017 study, evolving into a highly successful donor engagement option. Creating, promoting, and maintaining a crowdfunding program involves an investment in both industry-leading technology as well as staff resources. From our review of this data and conversations with client partners who use RNL Crowdfunding, here are some best practices we’ve identified and updated for 2018.


RUFFALO NOEL LEVITZ | FUNDRAISING RESEARCHRUFFALO NOEL LEVITZ | FUNDRAISING RESEARCH

How to cite this report Ruffalo Noel Levitz (2018). RNL crowdfunding Index 2018: Benchmarks and best practices for charitable crowdfunding campaigns. Retrieved from RuffaloNL.com/CrowdfundingSuccess. All material in this document is copyright © by Ruffalo Noel Levitz. Permission is required to redistribute information from Ruffalo Noel Levitz either in print or electronically. Please contact us at [email protected] about reusing material from this document.

ABOUT RUFFALO NOEL LEVITZRuffalo Noel Levitz is the leading provider of higher education enrollment, student success, and fundraising solutions. More than 1,900 colleges, universities, and nonprofit organizations rely on RNL for advanced analytics, personalized engagement, and industry-leading insights to achieve their missions. The firm is distinguished by its powerful portfolio of solutions focused on the entire lifecycle of enrollment and fundraising, assuring students find the right college or university, graduate on time, secure their first job, and give back to support the next generation. Ruffalo Noel Levitz conferences, research reports, papers, and articles help clients stay on top of current trends.

RNL Complete FundraisingToday’s fundraising landscape is highly competitive and quickly evolving. How can you keep up with increasing pressure and shifting donor expectations?

RNL Complete Fundraising combines advanced analytics, engagement technology, and industry-leading insights to deliver a more intelligent, modern approach to engaging donors and improving results. From donor acquisition to transformational giving, it’s smarter fundraising tailored to how today’s donors give. Find out how you can engage the right donors at the right time with the right offer through the right set of channels.

Visit: www.RuffaloNL.com/CompleteFundraising Email: [email protected]: 800.876.1117

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