Are you looking to take your organization’s fundraising to the next level? Join us for a two-month online course designed to help you, our non-profit partner, supercharge your fundraising. Apply online by Friday, March 15^th!

You’re committed to making a difference in the world and you need money to do it. So you’ve asked everyone you can think of to give— your 3^rd grade gym teacher, your best friend from college, your best friend from college’s dentist—we know how it goes.  But what’s next? What does it take to build a consistent and reliable base of donors? To establish valuable and lasting partnerships with companies? What do you need to do to get your organization’s fundraising to the next level?

That’s where the Online Fundraising Academy comes in! We’ve brought together fundraising professionals and analysts—experts in their organizations on donor communications,  campaign fundraising, corporate relationship building, and more—to offer a small cohort of GlobalGiving partners personal, hands on fundraising training. See below for a complete list of speakers and sessions.

What is the Online Fundraising Academy?

• A two-month course
• Made up of nine webinar sessions
• Taking place on Tuesdays at 11:00 am Washington, DC time in April and May.
• A small cohort of organizations will be selected via an online application to participate.

Selected participants are required to:

• Participate in at least eight of the nine webinar sessions;
• Complete three to four homework assignments for the course (may include reading an article, drafting an email communication, preparing a corporate appeal letter, etc.); and
• Develop a fundraising strategy for and participate in the June Bonus Day OR September Fundraiser Campaign (learn more in the 2013 Calendar).

Apply online by March 15^th! Feel free to email Alexis Nadin at anadin@globalgiving.org with questions.

We’re thrilled that you have chosen to make GlobalGiving  a part of your organization’s fundraising strategy.

Make GlobalGiving a more effective and valuable resource for your organization by completing our annual Partner Survey.

We’re committed to acting on your feedback! Here are some great improvements that we’ve made to GlobalGiving in response to your comments on last year’s survey:

• You can now schedule the date and time of your project report emails;
• The rate of recurring donations has doubled on the site because of experiments with various matching offers;
• We have changed the start time for the first two Bonus Days of the year to 9:00 am EST;
• The fundraiser tool has been completely revamped, making it easier (and more fun!) for your donors to fundraise for your project;
• We’ve created more opportunities for you to share your story with the GlobalGiving community including the chance to present to GlobalGiving’s New York City Leadership Council (learn more in the 2013 Calendar);
• And so much more!

What else can we do to make your experience on GlobalGiving even better?  Let us know here.  This 10-minute survey will help us to be more responsive to your needs and design tools and trainings that are most useful to your organization.

The final deadline for completing the survey is March 31, 2013.  But, if you fill it out early – by March 15 -  you will be entered in a drawing to have your project featured on the GlobalGiving homepage for a full day!  Three winners will be selected. Complete the survey by March 15 to avoid missing out on this great opportunity!

GlobalGiving is constantly working to improve our site and drive more donations to projects and organizations around the world. One of the ways that we do this is by continuously testing and optimizing our website to increase our conversion rate (a term used to describe how many visitors to our website become donors).

As we mentioned a few months ago, we’ve been testing a major redesign of our search pages and today I’m happy to share the results.

Summary

Based on the Money for Good initiative, GlobalGiving designed and tested a new version of our search/find feature. We designed two radically different versions (one providing a comparison view and one providing a visual view) and conducted a multi-celled A/B test to determine which had the biggest impact on conversion rates.

We found that both of the redesigns did better than our existing search design (the control cell), and within each design variation found promising directions for additional refinement.

Our Initial Hypothesis

By providing better visual designs of our search/find feature, we hypothesized that we could increase the conversion rate of donors. Furthermore, by offering better information within these designs we believed we could further increase the conversion rate. “Money for Good II” suggests that a detailed comparison of projects will produce the largest impact on conversion rates.

Design

GlobalGiving designed two new visual designs for our search – one based on a “Consumer Reports” listing to allow for comparison between projects and another with a heavy visual design inspirited by Pinterest.com to leverage donors’ natural propensity to respond to images.

Within each major design direction we identified several sub-variations. In these variations we altered the information that was displayed to visitors to determine what effect this information had on the conversion rate in comparison to the control cell for that group.

Test Cells

The organization level is a ranking system that GlobalGiving developed several years ago to incentivize organization and project leader behavior on our website. It rewards projects that report on their progress, raise money regularly, and have a large number of donors. Superstar is the highest ranking and Leader the second highest. Partner is the third highest and the minimum level an organization must obtain to post a project on the website. This is the first time that we have used this ranking direct to attempt to influence donor behavior.

The project grade was designed as a method to provide a clear, easily understood ranking system for donors. The Money for Good research suggests that a simple ranking system could increase donations. After much internal debate, we decide to map the organization status to a letter grade. Superstar organizations got an A, Leader organizations got a B, and Partner organizations got a C. We feel that this is an imperfect system that doesn’t fully reflect the nuances of real world performance and may suggest that a C project is less worthy of donations than an A project, which may not be true. However, for the purposes of testing the effect that a simple grading system would have on donors, we decided to use project grades for this round of testing.

The project statistics were a combination of the grade, the number of donations, number of project reports, and the funding level.

The funding level is a green progress bar indicating the fundraising progress of the project.

A – Control

B0 – Comparison (Control)

B1 – Comparison (Org Level Rewards)

B2 – Comparison (Project Grade)

B3 – Comparison (Project Stats)

B4 – Comparison (Long Term Impact)

C0 – Visual (Control)

C1 – Visual (Org Reward Level)

C2 – Visual (Project Grade)

C3 – Visual (Funding Level)

Methodology

We ran this test from November 11, 2012 through January 21, 2013. During this time, each visitor that went to a search/find page on GlobalGiving was randomly assigned to one of the ten test cells. A cookie was placed on the user’s browser indicating which cell they were assigned. If the visitor came back to the site during this test they would see the same cell. Additionally, this cookie was used to track the donations that were made.

Results

Here are the results from the test:

As you can see, all of the test cells improved the conversion rate over the control cell.

Contrary to our hypothesis, the detailed project comparison test cell (B3) proved to be the least effective of the comparison variations. The most effective variation of the comparison cells was the one using a project grade (B2).

Of the visual designs, the most effective was the control version that simply has the project picture and the name of the project without additional information. The funding level is close behind in terms of conversion rate but was able to garner slightly higher donations on average.

In addition to this raw visit and transaction data, we also got qualitative feedback from users via customer service. Generally users seemed to respond well to the new designs with one major exception – all of our project partners disliked the “project grades.”

Based on these results and the feedback from project partners, we’ve decided to remove project grades from the next round of testing. Although the grades provided a modest boost to conversion rates, we believe that with additional user interface refinement that we can boost the conversion rate by several percentage points without using a grade system.

Conclusions and Next Steps

Based on these results, GlobalGiving has designed a new round of tests that we are currently testing on our site.

Since both of the new design directions out performed the control (old) design, we stopped using the old design and instead focused on refining our two new designs. We will attempt to see if adding donation options to the comparison view has a positive impact. Additionally, we’ll see if the project statistics view performs well without the project grades. We will compare this against the two winning cells in the visual designs – the control and the funding level.

In summary, the test cells for the next round are:

Initial results are showing that these test cells are performing very well and may hold the key to an additional boost in conversion rates for all of the projects on our site.

Future Plans

Once the test has concluded and we’ve analyzed the results we’ll share them with you here.

Regardless of the results, we anticipate keeping both the visual and comparison designs on the site. After the test has concluded we will add the ability for donors to toggle between the views. The best performing cell will become the default option for new visitors and the other will be available for users that click the button to toggle to that view. This provides advanced tools for power users and the best conversion for the average visitor.

GlobalGiving is excited to host the Second Japan Matching Campaign running March 1st – 15th!  Starting at 12:01 am EDT on March 1st (14:01 pm JST on March 1st) GlobalGiving will match online donations at 100% made to projects that are related to earthquake and tsunami recovery activities in Tohoku, Japan.   In the memory of 2nd anniversary of Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, GlobalGiving will match online donations at 200% on  March 10th, 2013 from 11:00:01 PM EDT (March 11th, 00:00:01 PM JST) to March 11th, 2013 23:59:59 PM EDT (March 12th, 12:59:59 PM JST).  Qualifying organizations will receive an email from GlobalGiving with more information about participating. If you are working in the Tohoku region and have not received an invitation to participate, contact Mari Seto at mseto@globalgiving.org.

• All donations will be matched 100%, EXCEPT ON 3.11, where donations will be matched 200%

What are the terms for the Matching Campaign?

Terms and Conditions

• The Japan Matching Campaign will run from March 1, 2013 00:00:01 AM EDT to March 15, 2013 23:59:59 PM EST / (12:59pm JST on March 16).
• There is $100,000 available in matching funds. Once funds have been depleted, no more donations will be matched.
• Only organizations that are working on relief or recovery efforts in the Tohoku region of Japan are eligible for these matching funds. GlobalGiving reserves the right to approve all projects included in the campaign ahead of time.
• Matching is applied at 100% up to $1,000 per donor per project between March 1, 2013 00:00:01 AM EDT to March 15, 2013 23:59:59 PM EST  / (12:59pm JST on March 16) or until matching funds run out.
• GlobalGiving will match up to $25,000 per project.
• The project that raises the most funds during the campaign will receive an additional $1,000 bonus grant from GlobalGiving.
• The project that has the most unique donors during the campaign will receive an additional $1,000 bonus grant from GlobalGiving.
• Projects must be approved and live on the GlobalGiving.org website by February 26th, 2013 to be eligible.
• Projects that are located in Japan, but not working on Tohoku-related issues, are not eligible for this matching campaign.
• Online donations will be accepted through March 15, 2013 23:59:59 PM EST (GMT-4) Checks received by March 10, 2013 will be included in the matching and will count towards the number of unique donors for each project. Checks received after March 10, 2013 will be applied to the indicated project, but will not count towards the matching. Checks should be made payable to the GlobalGiving Foundation and should clearly indicate the project to which the funds should be applied. Unfortunately, we are not able to accept cash donations.
• Only donations made at www.globalgiving.org are eligible for this match. Donations made on www.globalgiving.co.uk or any GlobalGiving corporate sites (including Nike, Eli Lilly, Global Action Atlas, etc) are NOT eligible for matching.

Unique donors are determined using numerous criteria, including name, email address, credit card number, mailing address, and IP address. We are monitoring these and other parameters in our system to ensure that only unique, distinct donors are counted towards the donor bonus award.

Terms and Conditions for March 11th (200% Match)

• The 200% Match Day will run on March 10th, 2013 from 11:00:01 PM EDT (March 11th, 00:00:01 PM JST) to March 11th, 2013 23:59:59 PM EDT (March 12th, 12:59:59 PM JST).
• Matching is applied at 200% up to $1,000 per donor per project between March 10th, 2013 from 11:00:01 PM EDT (March 11th, 00:00:01 PM JST) to March 11th, 2013 23:59:59 PM EDT (March 12th, 12:59:59 PM JST)  or until matching funds run out
• Only projects that enrolled in Japan Matching can participate.
• Only online donations (credit card or PayPal) are eligible for matching. Donations made by check or text-to-give are not eligible.
• Donations made on www.globalgiving.co.uk or any GlobalGiving corporate sites (including Nike, Eli Lilly, Global Action Atlas, etc) are NOT eligible for matching.

It’s been a busy January already. The team at GlobalGiving is gearing up for another fast-paced year packed with fundraising action! In 2013, we’re giving you more occasions to share your organization’s story with GlobalGiving’s supporter and advocates, more opportunities to have donations to your projects matched, and more chances to have your voice heard as we grow and improve the GlobalGiving platform. Learn more about what we have planned in our 2013 Calendar.

But before we plunge into the New Year, we want to pause to say thank you for a tremendous 2012. Last year, your world-changing work—removing landmines in Cambodia, investing in entrepreneurs in Nigeria, training teachers in Peru, and so much more—inspired more than 67,000 donors to give to your projects. Your quarterly reports, openness, and transparency gave 60 corporate partners the confidence to invest $13.8 million in your work. And your feedback and suggestions helped us to dramatically improve our website.

So, from all of us at GlobalGiving, we would like to say a big thank you for making 2012 an incredible success!  To show our appreciation, we’ve put together a short thank you video with the hopes of making you smile. Check it out here!

2012 in Numbers

• This past year, $19.4 million was donated on GlobalGiving to support projects in 132 countries!
• 60 companies gave $13.8 million through GlobalGiving in 2012—that’s more companies and more corporate donations than ever before!
• Our Product and Business Development Teams continued to work hard to drive traffic to the site—we had 2.10 million visitors in 2012!
• 67,284 individuals made donations on GlobalGiving in 2012. And 50% of donors chose to add-on a portion of GlobalGiving’s fee to their donation—that’s a 3% increase from 2011.
• Through experiments with various promotions and incentive structures, monthly recurring donation volume on the site increased by 57%–we currently process more than $102,000 in recurring donations a month! (Go Kevin!)
• Sales of GlobalGiving gift cards continued to rise; we sold close to 10,000 gift cards for more than $1.2 million. (Unredeemed gift cards provide matching funds for GlobalGiving campaigns!)

Incredible, right? The momentum that we experienced in 2012 was no coincidence. The team at GlobalGiving worked hard to attract new donors through media outreach, develop and manage valuable corporate partnerships, and provide you with a better user experience and more opportunities to reach out to your own networks. Here are some highlights:

• In 2012, GlobalGiving partnered with Microsoft to launch a new giving platform, Give for Youth, which features microprojects (small projects supporting specific individuals or activities) that are providing continuing education, job training, and entrepreneurship opportunities for youth throughout the world. Microsoft gave away $300,000 in matching funds to participating organizations and purchased $125,000 in gift cards to be redeemed on the Give for Youth site. In the three and half months that the site was live in 2012, more than 40 organizations raised $540,491!

• Our tech team made it possible for you to: schedule project report emails that go out to your donors; duplicate existing projects and microprojects to streamline the project posting process; and submit your due diligence renewal (due every two years) online through an automated system. In addition, drawing on inspiration from the Money for Good initiative, the tech team began a search design experiment to increase donor conversion rates on the website and to optimize the look and feel of GlobalGiving.

• GlobalGiving gave away more than $200,000 in matching funds and GlobalGiving’s partners raised close to $1 million in matching campaigns and fundraising promotions! Check out some of the campaigns we offered in 2012 here.

• We launched our first-ever Project Leader Leadership Council, a small advisory committee made up of individuals representing our partner organizations, and the new Ambassador Program, which identified two GlobalGiving project leaders to represent GlobalGiving in their countries throughout the year. We also continued to expand and improve the services we offer to our partner organizations, including monthly trainings by experts, one-on-one fundraising consultations, in-person visits and workshops through the U.S. and the world, and volunteer listings.

Ok, so 2012 was amazing but 2013 is going to be even better!

We have already announced our 2013 fundraising calendar with the dates for upcoming matching and fundraising campaigns (including brand new promotions and fundraising opportunities!). Take some time to explore and identify promotions that are right for your organization.

Want to learn more about our 2013 calendar?

Join us for a webinar on Wednesday, January 30^th at 12:00 pm EST (This time in your city) for an overview of our fundraising campaigns and promotions taking place in 2013. We’ll equip you with strategies for successful fundraising in the New Year.

Sign up for the webinar here.

Help us make GlobalGiving better – join the Leadership Council!

The Council will also act as an ad hoc advisory committee, providing regular feedback and engaging in discussions about new features on the site and ideas for future campaigns via the new Leadership Council Facebook Group and email. Learn more about the Council here. Apply online by Friday, February 8^th. 

At GlobalGiving, our goal is to help our partner organizations raise more money for their valuable work around the world. We’re always thinking of new ways to drive more individuals to the GlobalGiving site and to increase the number of people giving to projects.

So, starting today, GlobalGiving is launching a new search design experiment in an effort to increase the percentage of donors who make a donation on the site!

Throughout the next few months, when a donor goes to search for a project on GlobalGiving, they will be randomly assigned one of nine new designs (see below for more details about the designs). We will closely track and compare the results from each search design—what percentage of donors click through to see a project page? what percentage of donors choose to make a donation? do certain search designs result in more donations than others?—and continue to test all nine designs until we have statistically significant results and we are able to select the most effective search design!

See below for more information about this experiment and screenshots of the different search designs.

Experimentation on GlobalGiving

We are dedicated to testing and improving our website to offer donors the optimal giving experience so that over time, they come back, give again, and give more money or more often than before. One way that we are doing this is through experiments run in collaboration with major donors and researchers. Last year, GlobalGiving tested the default donation amount on project pages, finding that donors are likely to give a minimum donation of up to $30 when prompted (read more here). Earlier this year, we tested various matching offers to see what would encourage donors to go from making a one-time donation to a monthly recurring donation (see the results here).

Search Design Experiment

GlobalGiving’s newest experiment is inspired by the Money for Good initiative, which conducted research on the US market for charitable gifts from individuals, including the factors influencing individuals’ decisions to give. The report shows that most donors do not spend a lot of time researching organizations before making a donation and those that do are looking for simple, digestible information.

Through this experiment, we expect to identify ways to increase giving through the search feature on our site by making it easier for donors to quickly compare projects and make a decision on which project to support.  The new designs have two major themes: Consumer Report and Visual. The Consumer Report designs provide donors with more information about the project and the organization—Partner Rewards Level, long term impact, funding to date, reports over time, etc. The Visual designs use a tile-like layout to feature more projects on one page.

These new designs will not affect the project itself. Donors with a direct link to the project or who are going to the project in response to a project report or thank you email will not see these new designs.

Here’s a quick look at the new designs:

Control 

This is the existing search design on GlobalGiving’s website.

Consumer Reports – Multiple Photos

Consumer Reports – Partner Rewards Level

Select donors will see search results with the Partner Rewards Level of the organizations listed. Donors can click on the question mark to learn more about the Partner Rewards Program. Click here to read the description.

Consumer Reports – Project Grades

Select donors will see search results with project grades. The grades—A,B,C—will correspond with the organization’s Partner Rewards Level—Superstars are A, Leaders are B , Partners are C. Donors can click on the question mark to learn more about grades. Click here to read the description.

Consumer Reports – Project Statistics

In this design, donors will see statistical information about project including funding to date, donation history, reports, and grade.

Consumer Reports – Long Term Impact

Visual

In this option, we show donors more projects one on page—up to 200!—using a tile-like design.

Visual – Partner Rewards Program

Select donors will see search results with the Partner Rewards Level of the organizations listed. Donors can click on the question mark to learn more about the Partner Rewards Program. Click here to read the description.

Visual – Project Grades

Select donors will see search results with project grades. The grades—A,B,C—will correspond with the organization’s Partner Rewards Level—Superstars are A, Leaders are B , Partners are C. Donors can click on the question mark to learn more about grades. Click here to read the description.

Visual – Project Funding Thermometer

We will continue to test all nine designs until we have statistically significant results and we are able to select the most effective search design. Stay tuned for the results sometime next year!