The rise in online giving is directly correlated to the rise in social media. 42% of online donors worldwide cite social media as the tool that inspires them most often to give. Of these donors, 62% say that Facebook inspires them the most. 15% say Twitter. 10% say Instagram. Digital marketing and fundraising roles have been professionalized during the past decade, changing not just fundraising, but in many cases, the staffing for it. Development staff members now regularly include digital fund – raising and marketing alongside the more traditional direct mail and telephone fundraising functions.

Digital fundraising only represents, on average, less than 20 percent of total donor revenue. The success and growth of multi-channel fundraising programs requires fundraising activities to be balanced across both digital and traditional outreach. The success of a fully integrated direct response program depends on getting all parts of the donor engagement process working in unison, with careful consideration for timing, messaging, audience segmentation, and personalization of appeals. Donors who receive direct mail appeals commonly visit websites or click on carefully-timed email appeals to make their donations. This shift in how supporters make donations is both a response to changing times and a function of how fundraisers are harnessing the tools and techniques at their disposal to facilitate and increase supporter response. As fundraising techniques become more reliant upon complex mixes of digital and traditional communications, fund – raisers become reliant upon a donor management system that can keep up.