A few weeks ago, we announced an experiment. Working with the Professional Fundraiser of the Year, Michael Naidu, we've decided to track how the country's highest-profile charities treat their online supporters.

This is Mike's first update after giving the charities each a small gift. We'll reveal which charity is which very soon.

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Apologies for the delay!

Donations were made tonight: Monday 4 August. The charities' websites contained a range of Gift Aid and data-protection statements, bold donate buttons, and showed a general emphasis towards regular giving.

After making my donations, I received confirmation e-mails immediately from Worldpay, CAF and Charity Technology Trust - the organizations which actually processed my credit-card details - showing that secure online donations are still cheaper to outsource for many charities.

The largest charity (working in international development) responded with an automated response from their executive director that gave a nice run down of its remit and a confirmation of my Gift Aid status. But there was no prompt to get involved; there wasn't a link back to an interesting part of the website.

The second-largest (disability) charity had the slickest donation pages but I only received a generic Worldpay confirmation email. Strange, I thought, as the website has a fresh feel that looks like it might have cost a pretty penny.

Third largest (learning disability) charity uses CAF to process its online donations and I wasn’t offered an opportunity to opt in or out of any future contact with the charity. I was offered the chance to opt into a CAF newsletter which I chose to forego. CAF sent a follow up e-mail giving me another chance to get involved.

The smallest (homelessness) charity had a fairly smooth donation process, but the text was quite small with too many click-throughs. The e-mail confirmation from Charity Technology Trust was short and sweet and if I had any queries I should contact the charity on donorrelations@... That sure gave me a warm glow.

Will update again in a week.
 

 

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