Fundraising trends for Indian nonprofits to adopt

Everyone is talking of billionaires pledging (or otherwise) their wealth to charity. But the role of average citizens in supporting social causes cannot be undermined. Nonprofit organizations, especially in India, have been using traditional methods of raising funds.

As the new age Indian philanthropists emerge, the quest for innovative ways to support social causes will change the rules of the game. Here are some trends that have worked in other countries and have been successfully adopted by some organizations in India.

Online Giving

With internet usage in India on a rise and the Indian e-commerce market growing rapidly at a pace of more than 30% per year the online giving space is finally gaining momentum.  

Very few nonprofits in India have an online presence and fewer have updated information on their websites. Except for some large-sized NGOs, the concept of online fundraising is still unexplored.  

As more and more Indians are getting comfortable with online purchase, online giving is increasing manifold. Nonprofits need to rethink their fundraising strategy and put more efforts online.  

Mumbai based social sector startup and initiative of Infosys cofounder N S Raghavan, Samhita is a recently launched online platform that gives visibility to credible nonprofit organizations and facilitates access to essential resources like funds, talent, expertise and knowledge.  

Social Media

International nonprofits have used social media networks very effectively to raise support and create social awareness.  

Raising millions of dollars for relief work after the Haiti earthquake and creating awareness on saving the girl child are two very successful examples that used social media for social causes.  

"...NGOs, primarily those that worked in rural areas and the "Bottom of the Pyramid" talked about challenges of different local languages, access to the Internet (electricity for that matter) and technology," wrote Beth Kanter on her blog about her experience at the Nasscom social media workshop in India.  

Social media marketing in general is in a nascent stage in India and most nonprofits are far from integrating social media in their outreach strategy.

Some active twitter users promoting social causes in India are @prathambooks @FundACause @JaagoRe  and @Bell_Bajao among others.  

Crowdsourcing

Crowd sourcing is a concept of letting your customers, employees and the public at large supply ideas, designs, features, etc for your products or services

Crowd sourced funding is a relatively new concept in India and there are very few successful examples.   Most crowdsourcing platforms are limited to designs and ideas. Inkfruit crowd sources designs for t-shirts and Brandpotion crowd source ideas for advertisements and marketing campaigns.

On the nonprofit front campaigns like the Case Foundation America Giving Challenge and  the more institutionalized Kiva Community model have been very successful in crowd sourced funding. In the Indian context, the Joy of Giving Week campaign has also been quite successful.  

Deals and coupons

Chicago based shopping deal site, Groupon has been a game changer in the ‘discounts' market. Deal sites like Groupon let users buy discounted vouchers for local products and services through limited period offers.  

Groupon had a few nonprofit deals listed in the past few months. Groupon's Kiva deal offered a 40% discount on its minimum lending product offering of $25 and Save the Children deal offered a 50% discount on a donation of $30.  

The deals market in Indian is also gearing up with Snapdeal pushing up the ante and recent acquisition of SoSasta by Groupon.  

Smartphone Applications

Surging increase in smartphone users has led to an ever-increasing market for mobile apps. More and more businesses try to stay in touch with their customers on the go using smartphones and tablets.  

Mobile apps for nonprofit organizations is an important area to watch out for in 2011. Using apps to improve operations for nonprofits working on community based projects has a huge potential.

A Bangalore based mobile technology startup, Mobisy has developed apps for nonprofits that help collecting field level information on a real-time basis.  

Apps are also important to connect with the younger and tech savvy supporters of a nonprofit organization. Salvation Army recently launched its Bellringer iPhone app for its dedicated volunteers, through which volunteers can share the tradition of being a Salvation Army Bellringer volunteer.  

Location based services

Increasing user base of location based portals like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook places has led to an increase in location based service offering by businesses.  

"...With tech evangelists and small businesses exploring the potential power of Foursquare and other location enabled services, it was only a matter of time before change makers in the non-profit and social enterprise ecosystem "checked-in" and began finding innovative methods to rally support for their causes..." - Mashable.  

Location based nonprofit services have immense potential in building a loyal volunteer base by providing information about volunteering opportunities on location basis. It is also helpful to reward loyal supporters with gifts and discounts like what New York Techies Give Back and Pepsi did for Campinteractive to donate $0.04 for every check-in.  

India is fast becoming an early adopter of innovative ideas and concepts in all fields and the nonprofit sector cannot be far behind. 2011 will hopefully see a new beginning to introduce and successfully implement such innovative ideas in the social sector.