2011 NPO SN Benchmark Report Final
2011 NPO SN Benchmark Report Final
2011
www.nten.org www.commonknow.com www.blackbaud.org
www.NonprofitSocialNetworkSurvey.com
2011 Common Knowledge
Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 Executive Summary .......................................................................................................2 Detailed Reporting Par 1: Topline Results
......................................................6 COMMERCIAL SOCIAL NETWORKS .......................................................................6 Nonprofit Presence .....................................................................................................6 Budget, Staffing and Resources.................................................................................7 Promotion.....................................................................................................................8 Return on Investment ...............................................................................................10 Why Nonprofits Are Not On CSN's ..........................................................................10 HOUSE SOCIAL NETWORKS...................................................................................11 Nonprofit Presence ...................................................................................................11 Budget, Staffing and Resources...............................................................................11 Role .............................................................................................................................13 Return on Investment ...............................................................................................14 Why Nonprofits Are Not Building HSNs.................................................................15 COMMERCIAL SOCIAL NETWORKS VS. HOUSE SOCIAL NETWORKS............16
About
NTEN ..........................................................................................................................32 Common Knowledge..................................................................................................32 Blackbaud...................................................................................................................32
www.NonprofitSocialNetworkSurvey.com
Introduction
NTEN, Common Knowledge, and Blackbaud are pleased to present the third annual 2011 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report. The report provides insights for nonprofits, foundations, media and nonprofitfocused businesses about the most important behavior and trends surrounding social networking as part of nonprofits marketing, communications, fundraising, program and IT services. Between January 24, 2011 and February 10, 2011, nonprofit professionals responded to a survey about their organizations use of online social networks. Two groups of questions were posed to survey participants: 1. Tells us about your use of commercial social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. 2. Tell us about your work building and using social networks on your own websites, called house social networks.
Commercial Social Network An online community operated on a commercial social networking platform such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. House Social Network Social networking community built on a nonprofits own website. Term derived from direct mail house lists.
Who Participated
Respondents included 11,196 nonprofit professionals representing small, medium, and large organizations and all nonprofit segments including: Arts & Culture, Education (Higher and K-12), Environment & Animal Welfare, Health & Healthcare, Human Services, Internal, Professional Associations, Public Benefit, and others.
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Executive Summary
The 2011 nonprofit social networking survey served up surprising results along with a few I saw that coming moments. Below are the top ten results from this third annual survey of nonprofits of all sizes and all major sectors.
From the commercial social networking world (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube) 1. Facebook is King and Extending Its Lead - Slowly
Facebook, the consumer-focused social networking platform, is the most popular commercial social network for nonprofits and continues to grow, albeit slowly. Nine out of 10 nonprofits (89%) report having a presence on Facebook in 2011. In the last three years Facebook usage has grown from 74% to 89%, with the largest chunk of this adoption occurring between 2009 and 2010 a 16% jump from 2009 to 2010, and just 3% from 2010 to 2011. By comparison, Twitter, the professional micro-blogging community, looks to have leveled off among nonprofits with usage levels reported at 57% in 2011, down slightly from 2010 (60%). LinkedIn, the online professional social networking community is used by 1 in 3 nonprofits (30%) in 2011, representing a steady-state - no real change from the 33% usage levels reported in both 2010 and 2009. MySpace, variably claimed as the future of social music distribution and consumer-based social networking more generally, is dying on the vine with an all-time low in 2011 of just 7% of nonprofits indicating they maintain a presence here, a -50% drop from 2010 (14% of nonprofits were on MySpace) and a veritable plunge from 2009 when 6% reported a presence on MySpace.
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stream ($1 to $10K annually) has risen each year from 38% in 2009 to 46% in 2011. The number of organizations raising $100,000 or more per year on social networks doubled this year from 0.2% to 0.4%, but obviously this still represents a critically thin slice of the sector.
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Table 1.1: Master Fundraisers the size of organizations raising more than $100K on Facebook
ORGANIZATION ANNUAL BUDGET ORGANIZATIONS WHO RAISED >$100K
The average Facebook following of a Master Social Fundraiser is nearly 100,000 (99,911) membersmore than fifteen times the general average. This number demonstrates that a prerequisite for raising big dollars via social networks is a big community. Viral or word-of-mouth-marketing within online social networks may reduce the cost of building a community, but nonprofits still need a large base of supporters to bring in substantial fundraising revenue. Staffing is important as well 30% of Master Fundraisers dedicate 2+ staff to managing and fundraising on their social networking presence, compared to just 2% for the industry. The conclusion is that resourcing matters a lot to get the job done if you want to fundraise successfully on social networks like Facebook, and it doesnt matter how large or small your nonprofit. If you manage to dedicate the budget and staff to the task even a small charity can raise $100,000 or more on Facebook.
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20% 10% 0%
FACEBOOK TWITTER YOUTUBE LINKEDIN FLICKR
19%
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Graph 2.2: Budget for Commercial Social Networks 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
NO BUDGET $1 $10K
48% 36%
8%
$10 $25K
3% 5%
$25 $50K $50 $100K
1%
>$100K
14% 11% 8%
3/4 to 1 FTE
5% 2%
1 1/4 to 2 FTE >2 FTE
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62%
48%
12% 8% 6%
SEM
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35% 17% 8% 5% 2%
11% 2% 1% 1% 0.2%
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House Network
22%
20%
24%
16%
18%
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Graph 3.2: Budget for House Social Networks 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0%
NO BUDGET $1 $5K $5 $10K $10 $25K $25 $50K >$50K
34%
30%
11% 10% 7% 8%
13%
13%
13% 7%
1 1/4 to 2 FTE
6%
>2 FTE
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Departmental ownership once again veers toward the business teams, even for this more technologically intensive build-your-own HSN context. Communications (17%), Marketing (13%) and Development (13%) lead as owners of the HSNs, closely followed by Programs (12%) and executive management (10%). IT steps in at 9%. Unlike many previous technology waves (e.g. donor database, websites) house social networks are not centralized within IT, and in fact, it looks like ownership is falling down along role lines ex. if the HSN is used to deliver health programs then the program group owns it. 6 in 10 (61%) nonprofits with house social networks have a budget item for social networking software. One-third (37%) budgeted more than $1,000. One in five (21%) are using commercial software to build their HSNs, while 22% and 26% are building custom platforms or using open source software respectively. The white label social networking software (i.e. software for building HSNs) marketplace remains highly fragmented, where the most popular commercial social networking platform is Ningused by 11% of organizationswhile Blackbaud products take the second and third place slots with their Blackbaud NetCommunity software (9%) and Blackbaud Social (formerly ThePort) with 3% adoption, respectively.
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Graph 3.4: Top Roles of House Social Networks 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
PROGRAM DELIVERY MARKETING CUSTOMER SUPPORT FUNDRAISING MARKET RESEARCH
Looking at the promotion of HSNs as compared to CSNs we note that the organizational website is the leading marketing channel for both, but HSNs are promoted by 59% of nonprofits using this outlet versus 78% using their website to promote their CSN. This is odd given that most HSNs are often integrated with or connected to the organizations website so therefore the website would seem like a natural marketing outlet.
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66%
12%
12%
7%
3%
84%
7%
5%
3%
1%
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An emerging and significant difference between commercial and house networks centers on the role of the community. While both channels are used for various purposes (marketing, customer service, fundraising, market research), marketing still leads as the chief role of commercial social networks, while Program and Service Delivery has taken over as the top role for house networks. Nonprofits have quickly figured out that Facebook is massive providing both a robust platform and a huge base (600 million active members and growing) and is the default choice for American consumers for peer-to-peer socializing online. As a result, savvy organizations are moving to overlay the delivery of their programs and services on house networks, thereby providing supporters a socially enabled experience steeped in the core organizational experience the mission.
92%
13%
Marketing
Program Delivery
How much staff time did you allocate to the community over the last year?
6,376 (Facebook)
5,967
How much fundraising revenue have you raised over the last year?
How much revenue from advertising, sponsorship or underwriting over the last year?
For those nonprofits without a community of this type, what is the primary reason?
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Organizational Mission
Nonprofits by Mission Type on Commercial Social Networks
Most nonprofit sectors have adopted Facebook at a high rate with the International Services vertical leading (97%) and the Health sector trailing (83%). International Service groups have historically been early and strong adopters of technology including the Internet and social networks, so their leadership position is no surprise. Health groups are likely trailing in their adoption of public social networks due to sensitivities around supporter privacy issues (e.g. nonprofits respect for an individuals right to determine how and to whom sensitive health information is disseminated or HIPAA concerns). Environmental and Animal Welfare organizations deliver the largest bases of Facebook Fans, with 8,490 fans on average. Environment and Animal Welfare groups have consistently demonstrated a knack for using technology effectively over the years. K-12 Education sector nonprofits have the smallest Facebook communities at an average of 948 not surprising given the inherently small ecosystem centered around a typical elementary or high school. Arts & Culture sector groups are the least likely to measure hard ROI (e.g. fundraising revenue and other financial data), but they express the most enthusiasm for their communities performances. 26% say their CSNs are very valuable compared to 12% from the least enthusiastic sectorProfessional Associations. Higher Education organizations are among the most likely to allocate significant budget and staff to commercial social networking, but only 6% of them raised more than $1,000 on Facebook in the last year. International Service groups, by contrast, are more likely than their peers to have raised more than $1,000 last yearlikely due to their penchant for deploying the resource (budget and staff) to make it happen combined with a history of smart and effective use of the Internet.
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Facebook Average # Members on Facebook Measuring Hard ROI Community is Very Valuable Budget (>$10K) Staffing (>1/4 FTE) Fundraising on Facebook (>$1K) Primary Role
94% 2,089
87% 2,318
92% 8,490
83% 6,037
89% 2,710
89% 948
87% 2,318
97% 4,780
88% 5,002
6%
9%
10%
10%
7%
9%
9%
12%
9%
26%
12%
26%
21%
19%
17%
15%
21%
22%
13%
18%
14%
17%
21%
13%
11%
19%
17%
23%
23%
26%
27%
30%
20%
19%
29%
26%
9%
8%
19%
18%
6%
11%
11%
23%
12%
Marketing
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We call the Higher Education sector organizations the early adopters; three in four higher education groups with house social networks started their first community more than one year ago. Organizations in the highest adopting sectorsProfessional Associations, Health, and Higher Educationplus K-12 Education sector nonprofits are the least likely to be measuring hard ROI statistics like financial data and fundraising revenue. This finding is surprising given these groups relative sophistication with all forms of revenue-generating activities: sponsorship, individual giving, advertising, etc. Perhaps the answer lies in their strong focus on program and service delivery. Bringing in revenue is not the objective of a health-based community built, for example, to help diabetics manage their diet and exercise in a peer-supported online portal.
1+ House Networks Average # Members Started 1st in the Last Year Measuring Hard ROI Community is Very Valuable Budget (>$10K) Budget for Software (>$10K) Staffing (>1/4 FTE) Fundraising (>$5K)
9%
25%
9%
14%
23%
15%
7%
14%
14%
1,250
6.082
5,024
10,580
6,270
1,558
1,130
2,241
13,847
43%
43%
36%
46%
25%
47%
47%
43%
43%
16%
9%
14%
9%
7%
9%
13%
10%
13%
25%
25%
27%
26%
21%
24%
24%
27%
34%
11%
38%
28%
31%
30%
18%
18%
19%
25%
6%
23%
29%
20%
28%
12%
10%
7%
18%
29%
49%
42%
40%
39%
36%
34%
45%
42%
17%
9%
25%
11%
19%
16%
17%
17%
7%
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Organization Size
Nonprofits by Organization Size on Commercial Social Networks
Overall, organizations of all sizes are embracing Facebook, with 9 out of 10 (89%) of organizations Small, Medium, Large and Very Large - indicating that they have a presence on Facebook (Note: Organization size based on annual budget). That said, organization size does make a difference when it comes to community size presumably bigger budgets, more resources and access to deeper expertise at larger organizations, on average, do make for a bigger fan base on Facebook. Small organizations ($0 to $5MM annual budget) average just 3,227 fans, while Very Large organizations (more than $250MM annually) average 24,811 fans on Facebook or 7.7 times greater than Small nonprofits. Twitter lags Facebook overall in its adoption by nonprofits, and a nonprofits likelihood to have a Twitter account and its average number of followers grows with the size of the organization. Very Large charities have a 40% greater likelihood than Small nonprofits (74% vs. 53%) to have a Twitter account and 16x greater follower base (16,686 followers vs. 1,025 for Very Large and Small organizations respectively). Large and Very Large organizations are 2 to 3 times more likely to be measuring the financial viability of their commercial social networks with Large (17%) and Very Large (21%) groups measuring hard ROI more frequently than Small (8%) and Medium (9%) charities. While determining cause and effect is tricky, Large and Very Large nonprofits indicate much higher levels of internal resourcing and budgets for their commercial social networking efforts. Very Large (56%) and Large (53%) groups are committing one-quarter FTE or more to their commercial social networking efforts at higher rates than their smaller peers just 21% for Small and 34% for Large groups. When it comes to annual budgets, the story is the same. A greater percentage of Large and Very Large groups are spending $10,000 or more on commercial social networking. Smaller groups are not able (or willing) to commit as many hard dollars; 11% of Small and 27% of Medium charities spend $10,000 or more annually. To complete the ROI picture, larger organizations are raising more money via fundraising on commercial social networks. 18% of Very Large charities report raising at least $10,000 in individual donations on commercial social networks, while just 1% of Small organizations report having raised at least $10,000 in the last year.
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Measuring ROI Internal Staffing (More than 1/4 FTE) Total Budget (More than $10,000) Started on Facebook in the last year Fundraising on Facebook >$10,000
11%
27%
42%
52%
37%
30%
21%
26%
1%
3%
12%
18%
Note: Organization size is measured based on total annual budget. Ex. A Small Organization has between $0 and $5 million in annual budget, while a Medium Organization has between $6 million and $50 million in annual budget.
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year. In general then, theres a good chance that you jumped into the deep end (to build a house network) pretty recently, and you are much more likely to have a presence on, for example, Facebook than to have built your own house network regardless of the size of your organization. As for the purpose or role of the house network, size mostly doesnt matter until you get to the organizations with annual budgets more than $250MM. A little over half of Small (57%), Medium (52%) and Large (54%) organizations specify that Program and Service Delivery is the focus for their house networks, while Very Large charities place a lower priority on program delivery (37%) and focus more on Marketing (53%) and Fundraising (32%).
1+ House Networks # Members Measuring ROI Internal Staffing (More than 1/4 FTE) Total Budget (More than $10,000) Started 1st House in the last year Fundraising >$10,000 Annual Budget for Social Networking Software (More than $10,000) Purpose of House Network: Program Delivery
19%
33%
56%
47%
42%
44%
28%
50%
9% 12%
11% 23%
12% 46%
13% 56%
57%
52%
54%
37%
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Table 7.1: Average Community Size for Cost Effective Social Networking Charities
FACEBOOK TWITTER LINKEDIN
6,376 42,000
1,820 4,370
1,200 8,774
Nonprofits measuring hard ROI metrics also raise more money on commercial social networks. One in ten (9.5%) who measure their Facebook fundraising revenue also brought in more than $10,000 over the last year, compared to less than 3% of nonprofits on Facebook generally.
Table 7.2: Fundraising Revenue for Cost Effective Social Networking Charities
NOT FUNDRAISING $0 $1K $1K $10K $10 $100K MORE THAN $100K
52%
35%
11%
2%
0.4%
23%
43%
24%
7%
3%
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Whether measuring ROI is the first step to raising more fundraising revenue or the reverse is true, it is clear that organizations who strive to fundraise, and who measure their progress tend to raise more on social networks than their peers. We find this true despite a widely held belief in the industry that fundraising on social networks is neither appropriate nor successful. Interestingly, the overall (qualitative) perceived value of social networks does NOT vary much between ROI measurers and non-measurers: 89% of measurers indicate that their social networking efforts are valuable (i.e. somewhat valuable or very valuable) while 82% of non-measurers report that their social networking efforts are valuable. Presumably this is due to at least two factors: social networks for program and service delivery are rarely ROI-positive programs by their nature, and not every organization focuses on financial return either because of intrinsic social benefit or a lack of administrative fiscal rigor.
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This is a particularly useful insight given that so many organizations spread themselves thin attempting to jump-start communities on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter while building out their Flickr and YouTube accounts and content. As we often suggest, it is a far better strategy to marshal your resources around one or possibly two social outlets most suited for your audience and mission. It takes considerable resources to build a large community in any one of these outlets, and clearly it takes a large community to produce sizeable fundraising revenue. Second, choose carefully: Facebook,Twitter and LinkedIn have spent a lot of effort differentiating their respective products. Learn the difference and build your community with the tools that suit you and that are used by your supporters.
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Twitter did not see the same strong user trends. While nonprofit presence on Twitter stayed roughly constant from 2010 to 2011, the size of nonprofits average follower base grew only 2%. Thats a significant plunge given the average follower base grew 524% between 2009 and 2010. This years results formalize what most folks have known for some time; MySpace is withering on the vine. About half of nonprofits on MySpace have abandoned it each of the last two years (dropping from 14% in 2010 to 7% in 2011 of nonprofits reporting a presence on MySpace), and between 2010 and 2011 the rate of community shrinkage has accelerated drastically. The average nonprofit MySpace community is 34% smaller this year: 1,189 members compared to last year (1,794). Fundraising on Facebook is still a minority effort. The number of groups successfully generating a small fundraising revenue stream ($1 to $10K annually) has risen each year from 38% in 2009 to 46% in 2011. The number of organizations raising $100,000 or more per year on social networks doubled this year from 0.2% to 0.4%, but obviously still represents a critically thin slice of the sector. One variable that has remained unwaveringly steady over the last three years is nonprofits perception of the value of their commercial social networks 18%, 18% and 20% of nonprofits in 2009, 2010 and 2011 respectively rate their social networks as very valuable, while the somewhat valuable cohort remains rock steady at 61% (2009), 63% (2010) and 62% (2011). Of course some of the value of Facebook and other social networks is that they are cheap means to reach potentially many people, and they enable supporters to share your content with their networks. Nonprofits have responded to this tantalizing value proposition by slowly increasing staffing committed to commercial social networks. Since 2009 about 5% of nonprofits have allocated at least some staff time (at least FTE) to commercial social networking, bringing the total percent of nonprofits that do so up from 81% to 86% between 2009 and 2011. Likewise nonprofit commitment to social networking budgets continues to rise with the small budget category ($25K or less annually attributed to commercial social networks) increasing from 33% (2009) to 36% (2010) to 44% (2011). Fundraising on CSNs strikes a similar pose with increasingly more charities reporting a small revenue result ($0 to $10K) from the individual giving efforts on CSNs ranging from 38% of groups in 2009 to 46% in 2011.
*eMarketer, February 24, 2011 Less than 20 million US adults used Twitter at least monthly in 2010, www.eMarketer.com]
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# of Survey Respondents % on Facebook Average Members on Facebook % on Twitter Average Members on Twitter % on MySpace Average Members on MySpace Measuring Hard ROI Fundraising on Facebook (>$10K) Value of Community (Very or Somewhat) Staffing (FTE)
980
1,711
11,196
74% 5,391
43% 287
26% 1,905
7% 1,189 (-34%)
N/A 1%
5% 2%
9% 2%
79%
81%
82%
Overall Budget
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980
1,711
11,196
22% 3,520
7% 74%
12% 78%
None: 14% 1/4 to 1/2: 57% None: 30% <$25K: 47% 11%
Overall Budget
Fundraising (>$10K)
* In 2009 we asked nonprofits to select the size of their house network from a range of options. 74% choose the lowest possible range, 1 to 2500 members.
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About
NTEN
NTEN is the membership organization of nonprofit professionals who put technology to use for their causes. NTEN helps you do your job better, so you can make the world a better place. We believe that technology allows nonprofits to work with greater social impact. We enable our members to strategically use technology to make the world a better, just, and equitable place. NTEN facilitates the exchange of knowledge and information within our community. We connect our members to each other, provide professional development opportunities, educate our constituency on issues of technology use in nonprofits, and spearhead groundbreaking research, advocacy, and education on technology issues affecting our entire community.
Common Knowledge
Common Knowledge, an Internet consulting agency, founded in 2002, provides online fundraising and marketing services to nonprofits and higher education. We assist our clients with strategy, digital asset development, and campaign management. An integral part of our work includes the concepting and deployment of social networks to support our clients efforts to raise funds from supporters and deliver their programs and services. Since 2006 our team has deployed more than 20 online social communities delivering the social strategy, selection and deployment of the community infrastructure, and on-going promotion for new member acquisition. Working with more than 100 nonprofits over the last 10 years, our recent clients include: 4-H, American Heart Association, Arthritis Foundation,ASPCA, Disabled American Vets, Junior Achievement, Operation Smile Train, Save the Children, and UC San Francisco.
Blackbaud
Blackbaud is the leading global provider of software and services designed specifically for nonprofit organizations, enabling them to improve operational efficiency, build strong relationships, and raise more money to support their missions. Approximately 24,000 organizations including The American Red Cross, Cancer Research UK, Earthjustice, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Lincoln Center, The Salvation Army, The Taft School, Tulsa Community Foundation, Ursinus College, the WGBH Educational Foundation, and Yale University use one or more Blackbaud products and services for fundraising, constituent relationship management, financial management, website management, direct
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marketing, education administration, ticketing, business intelligence, prospect research, consulting, and analytics. Since 1981, Blackbauds sole focus and expertise has been partnering with nonprofits and providing them the solutions they need to make a difference in their local communities and worldwide. Headquartered in the United States, Blackbaud also has operations in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com.
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