SWEET Online Fundraising Blog

Are women better fundraisers than men?

Women are better fundraisers than men.  Maybe.

We looked at data from one of our client's recent events.  It was a fundraising dog walk-a-thon that raised $50,000 or so - a fairly typical event in its size and the size of the organization running it. 

Participants collected roughly 1200 donations.  Women raised more than twice as much as the men.

Exhibit 1.  Comparison of donations collected by males and females in an a-thon

	Females	Males
Average Amount raised	$388.81	$184.19
Average Donation Count	8.5	4.0
Average Donation Size	$45.86	$46.42

The female participants in this event received twice as many donations as their male counterparts.  As a result they raised more than twice as much on average.

Exhibit 2.  Comparison of "asks" among male and female a-thon participants

Interestingly enough.  The size of an average donation collected by males and females was virtually identical.

Exhibit 3.  Average donation size and fundraising totals for men and women

The results are pretty straightforward.  The women who participated in this a-thon raised more money than the men who participated because they collected more donations.

The conclusions, as always, are up for debate.  It may be that women are better askers than men.

Perhaps women are not afraid to ask more people.  Maybe women are better at following-up on prior asks.  Maybe women ask people who are more likely to give.  Maybe women are just better than men at everything.  :-)

One thing is clear.  The number of donations is the key metric.  It should be something that organizations strive towards.  And in  virtually all cases, the number of donations corresponds with the number of asks.  The more you ask, the more you get.  This holds true for all individuals and organizations.  So, implement viral strategies that maximize the number of asks and RECRUIT FEMALE PARTICPANTS for you a-thons and fundraising events!

One email = $100. Increase your walkathon, marathon, and pledge event revenue.

We track fundraising performance for our clients' pledge events and one trend that we see in nearly every pledge event is that the number of emails sent out by participants is directly proportional to the amount of money that they raise.  Click the chart below to see the trend we noticed in one event.  It's typical. 

Our conclusion seems pretty obvious to the seasoned fundraiser.  After all, each email represents an ask.  The more you ask, the more you raise.  However there are some subtleties to note.  This data doesn't necessarily mean that organizations should haphazardly and repeatedly pepper their mailing lists with donation requests.  That won't work.  The emails that we're analyzing are sent between people with pre-existing relationships - family, friends, colleagues, etc...  Those types of asks are much more likely to result in a donation.

Another very interesting tidbit is that if we divide the amount of money raised by pledge event participants by the number of emails sent by them, we find that organizations can expect to raise $100 for every email sent.  One email = $100!

This holds true for most pledge events we've serviced. 

The takeaways:

1. Urge your pledge event participants to send as many emails as possible. 
2. Make it as simple as possible for pledge event participants to send emails 
3. Have a system that tracks emails sent vs. money raised.

Uplifting Athletes at Penn State

Big ups to ESPN blogger Adam Rittenberg for covering the Penn State Uplifting Athletes Lift for Life Event.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/bigten/0-1-25/Lift-For-Life-recap.html

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/bigten/0-1-18/Penn-State-takes-on-weighty-cause.html?post=true

This isn't your run of the mill NCAA Division 1 athlete story that makes the ESPN home page.  There are no rules or laws broken.  No firearms were brandished.  No alcohol was involved.  Still, it's a story worth telling on ESPN. 

Former Penn State wide receiver Scott Shirley started the Lift for Life event in 2003 to raise money for his organization Uplifting Athletes.  The funds from the event - $300,000 to date - are sent to the Kidney Cancer Association.  You can learn more about Uplifting on their site.  At it's core, the story is about a son and his commitment to his Dad.  It's awesome.

The Lift for Life event was Scott Shirley's brainchild and is flat out brilliant. (http://liftforlife.upliftingathletes.org)  It's a typical a-thon in which participants collect pledges.  The similarities end there. 

The event day activities are a series of strength and fitness events in which teams of current and former Penn State football players compete.  When is the last time you've seen giant tire-flipping at a nonprofit event?  Fans and onlookers are treated to a good show and are likely to be watching some future NFL stars.   

The Lift for Life event is on the verge of scaling to other Big 10 schools and I don't see why it couldn't expand to other conferences and divisions for that matter.

In 2008, Uplifting Athletes took a huge leap forward by raising $75,000 in Lift for Life.  In 2007, they raised $14,500.  Not bad, Scott.  I know there are plans for other Lift for Life events at Colgate and Ohio State.

The readers of this blog know that I always bring things back to takeaways that help your fundraising.  There are so many here.  The main ones are:

1. Know your audience and tailor your events to their interests and "strengths"
2. Be patient.  Nothing of substance happens overnight.  This is the 6th year for this event and they've crossed the chasm.  Sky's the limit now.
3. Use the right a-thon software.  It does make a difference.  Lift for Life experienced a 5x revenue increase this year.  Event participants attributed some of the gains to the usability of SWEET software for fundraising events.
4. Be creative!  You know how many walks and bike rides there are out there??  You can make an a-thon out of ANYTHING.

Walkathon software that will increase your event revenue

We are seeing more and more examples of organizations increasing their pledge event revenue by using SWEET event fundraising software by Blue Sky Collaborative.  At first, I hesitated to attribute their success to the software.  But it has become difficult to ignore the real impact that SWEET is having on event revenue. 

Don't take my word for it.  Here is a note from Scott Shirley, the Executive Director of Uplifting Athletes.

Hey Guys!  Did you know that at this time last year, (our old fundraising software) had only received $1,995 (out of a total of $14,166)?  So far this year…the guys have raised $10,572 with Blue Sky (Collaborative).  I asked the guys last night and they said the biggest difference is the ease of use for the participants...

You can find their site at http://liftforlife.upliftingathletes.org.