Innovations in data analytics and technology offer some potential boosts for 2019 nonprofit fundraising. Consider trends highlighted in this spring's Nonprofit Technology Conference in Oregon. For example, nonprofit tech pros reported success using Digital Wallets, such as Apple Pay, Paypal and Google Pay, to make donating easier for donors and to increase conversions. AI and chatbots are another boon cited by tech experts, not just because they free up staff from time-consuming interfaces but because they can be used to segment audiences and tailor communications to boost donor acquisition, value and retention. Meanwhile mobile text messaging and mobile giving not only continue to grow in use, but nonprofits are learning to leverage SMS to trigger response, scale donor relationships, and engage and motivate communities more fully. Online giving continues its growth path, but there are now more online giving services and their offerings are expanding. For example, Give Lively has free online fundraising tools for text-to-give, peer-to-peer, events, and integration with social media platforms such as Facebook. Finally, virtual-assistant voice services have entered the fundraising arena; for example, Amazon's Alexa now can help donors verbally contribute up to $10,000. But for tech innovations to be effective, quality data and data analytics for targeting are essential. Data can combine with real-time marketing automation, triggered e-mail series and variable data printing of personalized direct mail for improved donor acquisition and retention. And nonprofits don't need to vacuum up every bit of big data for better results. The key is to collect and track the information in the donor database, or to select the key response factors to target in prospect lists, most likely to lead to success. Beyond the basics of name, address/contact, gender, age and date and amount of last donation, data targeting can be enhanced with parameters indicating donor capacity (the ability to give) and donor affinity (the willingness to give), as a recent Philantopic blog post advises. Indicators of donor capacity include personal income/wealth measures, real estate ownership, business title, stock ownership, etc., while donor affinity parameters include the RFM (recency, frequency, monetary) of the donor or prospect giving history, past relationship/interest in a specific cause or affiliated appeal, and political affiliation and giving. Of course, a good database policy also includes regular hygiene and updating, and an ongoing check for knowledge/data gaps. For questions to ask to avoid costly data knowledge complacency, see our website blog post at https://www.acculist.com/tech-data-trends-spur-2019-fundraising-opportunities/
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