And here’s an infographic to describe the success of infographics. It’s shocking to see just how much of a difference infographics can make in responses and donations. As you can see in the example with African Wildlife Foundation, using an infographic for an appeal to supporters increased response rates by nearly 900% and increased donations by over 250%!

Fundraisers might want to experiment with using infographics in campaigns and compare to traditional messaging. Based on these numbers I would say it’s worth a shot.

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Today’s post is a great guest article, and amazing infographic, by Logan Harper from UNC.  Here it is:

Social media—through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content—is a powerful and accessible tool. With free online tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, governments, nonprofits, corporations, and individuals all have the ability to communicate their messages and participate in conversations with a global audience. Social media allows nonprofits and groups promoting social causes, even those with limited budgets, the opportunity to magnify their voices. In our hyper-connected world, individuals have the tools to effect change, raise millions of dollars, find volunteers, and make a global impact.

In our new infographic, Social Media for Social Good, we profile several successful grassroots and nonprofit campaigns, explain tactics that increase the impact of a message, and explore emerging trends in charitable giving and volunteering. Highlights include:

Making a Global Impact

• The day following the Haiti earthquake of 2010, CNN’s user-generated iReport had 1.4 million page views.
•  Twestival, a global offline event supporting various nonprofits, raised $1.75 million in 45 countries.

 Giving Back

• One in five adults in the U.S. has donated to a nonprofit online.
• TweetDrive 2011 harnessed the power of Twitter to organize 38 in-person events in which people donated more than 4,200 toys.

To learn more about the who, how, and why of Social Media for Social Good, take a look below at our infographic.

Below is an interesting infographic from Craig Newmark, the founder of craigslist.  He set out to answer questions like ‘Do the highest earning nonprofits use social media the most effectively?’ and ‘How are people responding and interacting?’ The results of questions like these were put into an infographic.

As Craig states in his own commentary on this data, quality is better than quantity – both in terms of audience and budget.  For example, YMCA of America has the highest income but one of the lowest number of Twitter followers, while PBS, which is near the bottom of the list in income, is putting up some of the highest numbers for followers and engagement.

So, while nearly every large charity is active on one or more social media channels, simply ‘being there’ is not enough. Social media is a two way conversation with audiences, and the biggest nonprofits aren’t necessarily the best at engaging stakeholders.

I recently came across this interesting infographic from non-profit consultancy Convio.  It shows the increasing prominence of online activities for non-profits in America (and applies to other countries, like Canada and the UK, as well).

It may seem obvious to charities that more and more of their current and potential supporters can be accessed through online channels.  But this infographic provides some hard numbers to support this growth in online activities.  Interestingly, it also shows that the amount of the average online gift is increasing.  As we discussed here, most major donors prefer to give offline, but it is curious to see that the value, as well as number, of online gifts is rising.

Does this mean that it is essential for charities to be online to survive?  Is it still possible to be a successful and sustainable nonprofit organization without having an online presence?  Let us know what you think in the comments.

This infographic is inspired by the The Sunday Times Rich List 2011 – an annual list of the wealthiest 100 people in the UK. In collaboration with the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), this list also captures information about charitable giving.  New to for 2011 are more detailed questions about motivations for charitable giving and views on philanthropy.  So, here’s a summary of what’s happening with philanthropy from ultra wealthy individuals:

In this second part of our post on data visualization, we take a look at how technology can help non-profits understand and share information about donations. I don’t want to get into data gathering and analysis here – there are plenty of databases and programs for that. What I want to look at is data presentation, or visualization.

Data about donors and donations can be overwhelming. Who gives, how often do they give, how much do they give, is it project-specific or unrestricted, and so on. Fundraisers must make sense of all this data to refine and improve their approach. But fundraising does not operate in a vacuum and this information often needs to be (and should be) shared with others.

Most prospective donors want to know financial information about a charity before giving – income, expenditure, reserves, etc. And let’s not forget what donors cite as being the single most important factor about giving: the percentage of their donation that goes directly on charitable activities. All of this information can be easily and creatively presented to prospects through data visualization, like ‘infographics’. Here’s a recent example from the the 2010 UK Giving Report. It’s an interesting graphic of UK individual donors according to the proportion of donors (%), median donation among (£) and the share of total donations (%) by giving method:

But it would be a mistake to think that data only need to be presented in a easily accessible way to external stakeholders but not for people within the non-profit who already ‘get it’. The Board, for example, often want brief, to-the-point information about fundraising income sources and projections. And they generally don’t want to read long reports or have to interpret data either. Clear presentation of data through infographics can help fundraisers get their message across in a way that leaves little room for misinterpretation. A very good thing. Here’s a nice example from the folks at M&R about non-profit engagement online:

This is all well and good but is there a way to make an infographic for your charity without paying an agency? There sure is. Here’s a good blog post on how to do it. Non-profits should try presenting their data in creative visualizations to make it easier for both internal and external stakeholders to engage with their statistics.