Fundraising Challenged by Gen Z, E-mail, AI

For nonprofit fundraising, 2019 will be another challenging year. Successful direct marketers will need to adapt to changes in demographics, technology and donor targeting, to name just a few trends recently cited by the Donorbox Nonprofit Blog. For example, Donorbox is sounding the alert ahead of the next demographic wave. While the Millennial generation is still the biggest cohort in the workforce, Gen Z is arriving. Born after 1996, they now make up an estimated 27% of the population and will account for 40% of all consumers by 2020. How are they different? The "2017 Global Trends in Giving Report" found that Gen Z members are interested in giving to many different causes, especially those involving youth, animals and human services. But to win the attention of these digital natives, messaging must be concise and engaging, offering an immediate experience that cuts through the marketing noise they routinely filter out. Gen Z is also the first mobile-only generation, so website, e-mail and donation forms must all be optimized for mobile. Meanwhile, remember that today's donors expect a personalized, targeted approach that takes into account demographics, giving history, etc. That means segmenting donor and prospect lists for specialized messaging to account for generational differences and other demographics. It means tailoring the "ask" to the prospective donor's income and giving history. It means refining giving/donation pages to highlight projects and wording that will resonate with the target donor group. E-mail is a channel that can be easily personalized, and despite its recent bad rap, a revisit of e-mail strategy is worthwhile. Research shows that donors willing to donate through e-mail rose from just 6% in 2012 to 28% in 2018. Second, low-cost e-mail has an ROI of 122%, much higher than direct mail, social media and paid search. Finally, fundraisers need to make more use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), perhaps by creating a chatbot to interact via messaging services like Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, etc. to handle donations, register members and distribute information about programs and services. AI also can personalize donor journeys based on real-time behavior to encourage contributions and can weaponize data for more cost-effective donor development. For example, a donor's giving and volunteering history, event attendance, affiliations, relationships, and data from wealth screening tools can all be analyzed to predict a potential donor’s likelihood to give a major gift. For more, see our website blog at https://www.acculistusa.com/fundraising-challenges-include-gen-z-e-mail-ai/