One of the most exciting things I get to do is assist startups. From time to time, I get to talk with energetic young people who have ideas for a new company. If they approach me in the right way, I will make time for them and impart whatever wisdom is appropriate. But sometimes, the relationship goes further.
For the past two years, I have been working with a new company called Softgiving. They are revolutionizing the way donor-driven organizations (DDOs) are reaching new donors and raising more money. Specifically, they are focused on giving DDOs explicit tools to engage millennials and minecrafters to not just donate their time, but also their money. It’s not all that easy a task, as it turns out, but it is rooted heavily in the world of social media and marketing.
Most DDOs are quite traditional in how they accept donations online. It’s pretty much driven by credit card. A DDO will have a campaign for $100, $250 or $500 donations, usually for a specific issue or cause. Well, most millennials don’t have even $100 to donate, and most of them prefer debit card for their transactions. So, it’s a challenge for Softgiving to help DDOs understand they must change their online giving options to accommodate this new pool of potential donors. It’s really important, too: most DDOs are seeing a drop-off in donations as traditional donors drop out due to disability or death.
To model how a DDO should incorporate softgiving into their website, the company needed to create a demo charity to use as a best-practices model. But this also presented challenges: they didn’t want it to look so much like an actual charity that people started donating to it. So, since the CEO is an avid outdoorsman and hiker, Softgiving created … sockgiving. That’s right—a charity to restore unmatched socks from the laundry and send in drones to present worn-out hikers with fresh socks. It’s all done tongue-in-cheek, but it allows a DDO to see how they could enable softgiving in exactly the same way. Check out the explainer video for sockgiving here.
This illustrates two important points: 1) the value of creating a full demo to model best practices for your customers, and 2) the usefulness of an explainer video (animated or live-action) to quickly educate on your solution or advocate a position. How could your organization brainstorm ideas on how this would work for you? Are you missing out on opportunities simply because customers and prospects don’t “get it?”
Oh, and if you are a DDO or know one that could benefit from increased donors and increased giving to support their good work, have them check out www.softgiving.com.