Charities could be missing out on donations by not engaging with older people through online and mobile channels, according to new research.
A report, Time for UK Fundraising to Look Up, published today by the agencies Xtraordinary Fundraising and Forster Communication and fundraising software company Blackbaud, looks at the giving habits of ‘baby boomers’, those born between 1946 and 1964, and ‘civics’, born before 1945.
It concludes charities are not considering the full potential of older donors because they are too focused on ways to engage younger people.
The report is based on interviews with 1,498 UK donors and compares their giving habits to their peers in the US and Canada. Researchers carried out an online survey of 809 older Canadian donors and of 1,014 US donors.
Fundraisers that want to engage with older people more effectively need to look beyond traditional channels used for reaching this age group, such as direct mail, it says.
“These people are shopping and consuming online and through their smartphones, and charities that crack these as successful engagement points are likely to reap the benefits,” the report says.
The report shows older UK donors are behind those in Canada and the US when it comes to giving online. It shows 17.4 per cent of older UK donors give online, compared to 31 per cent of their peers in Canada and 27 per cent in the US.
Older UK donors are also not engaging with charity websites to the same extent as those in the US. Only 11.9 per cent visit sites in the UK, compared to 19 per cent in the US.
This suggests there is significant potential for charities to ramp up online donations from older UK donors, it says.
But the UK is ahead of North America when it comes to donations made via mobile and social media. The report shows 4.1 per cent of older UK donors give through social media networks, such as Facebook, compared to 2 per cent in Canada and 1 per cent in the US. It shows 3.9 per cent of older donors in the UK give by text message compared to none of those surveyed in Canada and 2 per cent in the US.
The report says the low proportion of online donations made by older people in the UK contrasts with the increasing levels of engagement with smartphones and social media, and digital literacy among this age group.
Stephen Butler, co-founder of Xtraordinary Fundraising, said: “Many charities are busy trying to reduce the average age of their donors but perhaps they should be considering whether they are doing enough to fully engage older donors who are the ones who give the most. The days of mopping up older donors just through DM are really over.”
Peter Gilheany, director at Forster Communications, said: “Businesses are only just waking up to older people as a lucrative consumer audience but many charities already have close relationships with them as donors. Those relationships could be a lot deeper and more numerous if charities invest more in integrated approaches to this audience.”
