Fundraising in a Digital Age
When I was a child and fundraising for a charitable cause I trotted around the neighbourhood clutching my increasingly grubby sponsorship sheet collecting signatures and promises of money. Donations came from the mothers of my friends, who followed the unspoken rule that my mother would then donate the same amount to their child (these sheets came round often); from the friends of my mother, I suspect out of a sense of sympathy for her parental responsibilities or from my neighbours who would hurriedly sponsor me 10 pence to run 26.2 miles (“what! For the whole marathon?”) before shutting the door on me in order to return as quickly as possible to their TV.
Those of you for whom this resonates will realise that I grew up in England in the 1980s! Our aspirations were limited and the amounts we raised were small.
Fundraising then got big — Red Nose Day, Children in Need and even went global with Live Aid. Celebrities stood behind the fundraising causes and mass media coverage meant that our small amounts (raised from sitting in baths of beans or tap dancing with strangers) pooled together and the aggregate amounts raised were vast.
And now fundraising has morphed again. In our digital age it is both small and personal; individual fundraising campaigns for causes that ostensibly impact only upon those trying to raise the funds and simultaneously a global endeavour raising huge and world-changing sums.
So why do people donate to a cause on the other side of the world? Why do people give money to help someone they will never meet?
Research tells us people donate for three main reasons:
Altruism — the simple desire to help. In the digital age we are drawn to the online fundraising stories of individuals who need us, and for whom our donation can make a difference.
Take the fundraising page for Jake as an example.
Impure altruism — helping makes me a better person/it might happen to me one day/thank goodness it’s not me. Impure altruism in the digital age is not to be knocked. It is extremely valuable, especially for those charities which rely on fundraising and donations from individuals in wealthier nations to positively impact upon the lives of those struggling in a distant land.
This fundraising page for the floods in Chennai is an example.
Contagious altruism — to fit in; be part of a movement. In the digital age, considering that many others have given is more likely to encourage a person to hit the donate button of a fundraising page.
This fundraising page shows just how contagious altruism works
As individuals we are weak, together we can change the world (or at least one life)
But, whether door to door or digitally, giving and fundraising remain fundamentally social acts. They are ways of connecting with others and with our own humanity.
With the growth of mobile technology and social media our networks of charity can now stretch around the world. The good we can do is no longer limited by our own horizons.
Lucy-Ann Dale
