One more thing about the $50 million raised via text messaging after the Haitian earthquake:  Convio’s survey stressed the generational differences between those who texted (or who considered it) and those that gave some other way.  They found that while 77% of US donors were aware of the Haiti text-to-donate efforts, 17% of Millennial respondents and 14% of Gen Xers said they actually made a donation using text message, while only 3% of Boomer and Mature respondents did.

While it is a compelling storyline that younger people are giving, especially since — as Vinay says — non-profits have already “optimized fundraising with seniors,” what would be of more interest to me is how long these people will stick around.  Organizations’ experience with past disaster relief donors are that the vast majority are new donors and that they have been very difficult to renew.  This was certainly the case with the tsunami donors I mentioned in the last post.

How much luck will the Red Cross and other organizations have in cultivating and developing a connection to this huge group of donors who cared more about this one particular campaign than the organization itself?  How much should they even try?  Maybe they should just accept the fleeting nature of these short-attention span one-time donors and take the money and run, instead of wasting more money trying to grow a relationship that really never existed.

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