Topic: What is tomorrow’s donation currency?
Online monetary donations show interesting growth and at a relatively early stage of development. Also of interest is the observation that donorsvolunteering time through online platforms at a higher volume than in the past. Signing up for petitions on change.org, volunteering their time for projects and contributing influence by leveraging their sphere of influence on social media are all new currencies. Global Citizen is leading the charge by enabling a generation of active participants. What do these behaviors and trends foretell and how will NGOs make the most of this to create support and sustainability for their missions.
Who is Public Interest Registry?
Public Interest Registry is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) that is the operator of the .org Top Level Domain (TLD) on the Internet since 2002. Public Interest Registry acts as the wholesale provider of .org domains to a broad distribution channel that sells domains directly to the public. Public Interest Registry’s mission is “to empower, through the Internet, those who dedicate themselves to improving our world.”
Public Interest Registry’s parent, the Internet Society (ISOC), is an international nonprofit organisation. Its mission is to “promote the open development, evolution and use of the internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world.” To accomplish this, ISOC focuses on Internet standards development, educational initiatives, and technically sound policy formation.
In 2015, Public Interest Registry launched OnGood, an exclusive suite of online services revolutionising the way NGOs and nonprofits worldwide raise awareness, funds and support for their missions.
- NGOs of all sizes and reach now have access to an exclusive online identity and membership to a community website with a searchable directory to improve visibility, raise funds, and connect with other NGOs.
- OnGood’s validation process reassures Internet users worldwide that websites with .ngo and .ong identities represent genuine NGOs.
- Membership includes a customisable online profile within the OnGood community where NGOs showcase campaigns, share activities and information, and collect donations
Why is this topic potentially relevant to Public Interest Registry?
With the introduction of OnGood, Public Interest Registry is offering a service that allows NGOs to be visible and connect with donors online. OnGood gives donors the ability to find genuine NGOs, learn about the NGOs and their missions and choose to make a donation directly to OnGood NGOs.
Donor behavior and decision-making will have a direct impact on the support for NGOs using OnGood and for OnGood itself over time. Public Interest Registry understands that the Millennial generation and Generation Z – generations that grew up with the Internet – will shape donation currency into the future. How they give, what they give and what triggers their decision to give are critical areas to understand. Projecting those trends would provide insights that could ensure the NGOs benefit from those trends to gain support and sustainability for their respective missions for years to come.
Sub questions:
- What are the drivers of online donations today? What trends can be anticipated for online monetary donations?
- How do Millennial and Generation Z members donate time? What methods do they prefer? How do they deliver those time donations?
“I think hidden in the statement is that online giving is changing in that young people are influenced to give by social media and their friends on social media and cool brands on social media like Change.org and Global Citizen, but they don’t give very much. Gen X and Boomers are doing most of the giving… but when Millennials and Gen Z grow up and start to give more, it will be done predominantly online and that will change philanthropy.” Source: Heather Mansfield, NPTechforGood.
Also see Tap Root based in San Francisco where donors who prefer to where volunteers offer consulting service and the volunteers tend to offer the pro bono time from home.
Also see Catch A Fire for an example of online platform volunteering.
Data shows that volunteering is down in the U.S. Not clear if source is measuring volunteering through online platforms.
- How do Millennial and Generation Z members donate their influence? What forms does influence take? Do flash mobs, online advocacy or other forms of crowdsourcing imply predictable behavioral trends into the future?
“As far as petitions, I don’t know of any data in terms of how many people sign online petitions now opposed to how many did in the early 2000’s, but Change.org and Global Citizen are not the first to launch online petitions and they did not they pioneer the technology. I was the founder of a website called eActivist.org in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s that was a portal to online petitions/letters/faxes, etc. and e-actions were very popular back then (pioneered by Care 2, e-petition.com, GetActive, etc.)… and then lost popularity for about 5 years and then came back when Change.org was in the right place at the right time in 2011ish. Online petition technology has been around for almost two decades, we just have more people online now and more people that trust and use the technology.” Source: Heather Mansfield,
How would Public Interest Registry use the research and analysis on this topic?
Putting aside the specific service features and benefits of OnGood, Public Interest Registry is attempting to facilitate the unleashing of a community dynamic for NGOs and their supporters. We could apply the research to better facilitate the interaction between donors and NGOs, to better facilitate the community dynamic through design upgrades to OnGood and could engage in a more focused way with different segments of the global NGO community (NGOs, donors, foundations, servicer organization). We could better understand what new services to develop and/or what partnerships to enter into to broaden OnGood’s impact on NGOs.