With a session starting at 8:00 a.m. one always wonders what the crowd might be like and with one of the biggest meeting rooms at AFP International to fill, one can tend to worry about addressing a number of empty chairs. That concern was short-lived as hundreds of fundraising professionals grabbed an early cup of joe and made their way to learn more about the online behaviors and preferences of major donors - the first public presentation of the results of this landmark research by Edge Research, Sea Change Strategies and Convio.
Vinay Bhagat, Mark Rovner and Colleen McCulloch-Learch shared their insight into the research and more importantly to the attendees, what it means for the nonprofit fundraising professional trying to engage, motivate and retain the "wired wealthy" - a constituent that, while making up only 1 percent of the donor records for the participating organizations, accounted for 32 percent of their revenue.
Mark told the crowd that if they only took away two bits of information from the early morning session it should be:
1) If you think it is only the 20-something or teen that sits in the back seat and texts all their friends that make up the wired, Internet savvy audience your nonprofit can reach, you are making a big mistake, and
2) Nonprofits need to be smart about how they communicate with this audience - "you only get a few bites at the apple" as Mark likes to say.
