The Chronicle of Philanthropy released the results of their annual survey of online fundraising this week.  While online fundraising continues to grow, that growth has slowed down a bit.  The magazine attributes this to the economy, although it also notes that online isn’t off as much as some more traditional methods of fundraising.  Other notable findings include:

• Despite its growth, the Internet still provides only a fraction of overall revenue — still in the low single-digits percentage-wise for most groups.
• Asking for low dollar amounts ($1 – $5) in order to get wide participation is working.  Although for some groups this has resulted in fewer, but larger, gifts.
• Stand alone emails — as opposed to those that are integrated with direct mail or some other channel — still aren’t doing well unless they include an urgent deadline.
• Rented lists still haven’t caught on, but “chaperoned” campaigns — where another group or company sending emails on behalf of a non-profit — work very well
• Personalizing campaigns — either through creative use of social networks like Facebook or by letting donors have their own fundraising pages and goals — also is very successful.

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