Donations as a Measure of Civic Engagement
Posted by Allison Fine on April 21, 2010
I saw a tweet this morning from Allison Jones from a presentation the amazing Kim Klein was giving in Detroit. The tweet read, “Kim Klein: more people donate $$ than vote or volunteer via @new_org”
I began to wonder whether we’ve been missing an opportunity to use donations as a measure of civic engagement. On land volunteerism and voting are traditional measures of local civic engagement. They are proxy’s for local social capital and stickiness. Here is a typical article on the connection between voting and local social capital and a blog post on volunteerism and social capital. But you won’t find articles or posts on donations and social capital.
The assumption is that writing a check is too passive to be considered engagement. In the same way that some folks think that clicking to raise awareness of an issue, such as clicking to support breast cancer, is too small, light, passive to be considered by some to be true participation.
I reject both of these arguments. I think any time someone does something for a cause, no matter how light, it is an opening and an opportunity for developing a stronger relationship with them.
Beth has illustrated this relationship in a diagram called The Ladder of Engagement:
The more interesting question than whether or not donations equal engagement is how nonprofits are being successful stepping people up this ladder of engagement. We wrestle with this a bit in our book The Networked Nonprofit. More to come on this in the weeks and months ahead!
7 Responses to “Donations as a Measure of Civic Engagement”
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Mark Peters said
Hi Allison,
I think this is a really interesting topic and maybe one that is being altered by the social networking tools available to people these days. When I consider Causes on FB, a huge number of people are engaging by joining causes (and thus spreading the word of the validity of a cause to their network) while a smaller number are making actual donations (at least via Causes). I think that both of these actions are important pieces of engagement. However, on Causes, I think that the donors are more involved/committed than the spreaders. Thus, maybe the chart above works pretty well in an offline context but, on Causes, I would want to swap Spreaders and Donors.
Looking forward to future posts.
Mark
sikiş said
breast cancer, a disease that god awful story of those who get help
Damon said
Good topic. It’s one of those hmmm that sounds about right articles.With social media be a major part of peoples lives getting involved requires less work but can be just as effective as stepping outside your door and lending a hand. If people really realized how much they can help even with just a click it will create amazing benefits for the cause. It’s the responsibility of the cause/organization to maximize that contact.
Anna Palmer said
Allison
I was at the Networked Nonprofit session in Atlanta and loved it, thanks for that. I have pre-ordered it on Amazon. Recently I (along with legions of others) read Switch, how to change when change is hard…and tried to pull some of the concepts out of it to apply to the difficult task of engaging our supporters…and pulling them up the ladder. Here are a few of the points I think can be helpful:
Follow your bright spots. If a campaign, donor, or programming is exceeding your goals, try to determine why and replicate it.
Marry long term goals with short term critical moves. Your mission is critical, but showing your staff and supporters how you will get there shrinks the change, and energizes giving.
Script the moves. For an organization that fights homelessness, linking a monthly gift equal to 1% of a donor’s mortgage payments can keep your mission front of mind and the amount and timing of donation clear.
Grow your people. Increase their role and identity within your organization. Donors who support a public health campaign might become “messengers” – with their donation receipt you can arm them with support materials and task them to teach 10 friends the importance of breast self exams.
Act more like a coach and less like a scorekeeper. Everything looks like a failure in the middle. Focus on the valleys of a program as learning opportunities rather than failures. There should be no “never” – only “not yet.”
Full post:
http://blog.winwinapps.com/2010/04/switch-clarity-and-directed-giving/
Mazarine said
Dear Alison,
Thanks for mentioning Kim Klein’s stats and Beth’s levels of engagement. Getting money from someone is just a conversation opener. We can build a relationship from this.
One way I see a nonprofit building relationships on twitter is tweeting the reason people give, and what they gave, every time that they give. It’s huge. You see the outpouring of support right there.
Another way to build community is to have a signup sheet at each real life event you have, and encourage people to put down their twitter handles as well, so you can follow them on twitter, and they can follow you back. Much more personal than asking them to “like” you on Facebook, and they get mini e-newsletters instead of one once a month or every other month.
Mazarine
http://wildwomanfundraising.com
http://twitter.com/wildwomanfund
Magiure said
This is an amazing post which posses another question; of how does social media contribute or does it contribute to ones civic engagement? Does clicking the fan button on Facebook for MS Awareness open an individual up to the cause or is it also simply too small a gesture to bear significance?
There is a great interview series of social media experts that you might really enjoy.
http://www.ourblook.com/topic/social_media.html
türk seks said
Good topic. It’s one of those hmmm that sounds about right articles.With social media be a major part of peoples lives getting involved requires less work but can be just as effective as stepping outside your door and lending a hand. If people really realized how much they can help even with just a click it will create amazing benefits for the cause. It’s the responsibility of the cause/organization to maximize that contact.