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The first round of the GlobalGiving Open took place in May 2006. GlobalGiving community members who voted on the projects offered some useful feedback as they "donated" their GlobalGiving bucks during the Open. Their discussion offered some valuable insight into what donors may look at when thinking of which projects to donate to. Below is some recent feedback they offered:
Tangibility and clearly identified beneficiaries and activities
Donors are drawn to projects where they see who will benefit, how they will benefit and what activities will deliver these benefits. Simply having tangible outcomes was not enough, the donor needed to feel that the outcomes were achievable -- and to determine this they looked at things like your budgets, funding requested, and staff. They were often put off when they realized that the funding requested was 3-4X what they organization's entire budget had previously been. It raised overall concerns about the project's ability to deliver on its proposed projects.
"Is it pithy? Does it clearly communicate the activities and the beneficiaries of the project?" I wanted to know that the projects will have both tangible and intangible benefits - but if I knew or thought I knew what the benefits would be I was willing to donate anyway. In other words, will the benefits of the project be primarily anecdotal, or can they be tangibly measured (e.g., reduced malnutrition, greater literacy, better health outcomes, etc.)?"
"As many people have mentioned, I found I liked projects that seemed like there was a more concrete plan for carrying out their agenda and a clearer description of the activities."
"With so many good causes to choose from, I felt myself being extremely stringent about giving money to projects with specific goals, real tools, and the most measurably impactful ideas."
Donation Options: A key piece of information we ask for organizations to submit is donation options for your project. The donation options tell the donor what money buys. "I found myself putting a big emphasis on the donations options - both for determining what to give to and how much to give." "A lot of projects listed a million varying types of activities as part of their descriptions (advocacy, school fees, monitoring, etc). Often these weren't even represented in the donation options. This was a turn-off for me - it seemed like they didn't really know what they were going to do with the funds."
Donation options show the donor how their money can tangibly contribute to your project's impact. $10 will buy uniforms for 3 girls is a good donation option. $100 supports training is not clear, nor is it tangible. Be sure that donation options tie into your project's budget and your stated activities.
Budgets
Project budget is important to donors. Many voters commented that they liked the smaller budgets because they felt that their dollar would have more impact.
If an organization does request a larger sum for their project, voters did not say this is a bad thing but that the organization should provide more information to show that it has the capacity to complete the project. "I think this puts a larger information burden on the big projects, as perhaps it should -- a project that is going to spend $100K plus needs to provide specific information that will convince me that it can be completed successfully. This left me gravitating toward some of the smaller projects, even though the goals of some of the larger projects were more appealing."
"I found myself disappointed that there was often little budget information for the project - I found it hard to reconcile, for example, a project budget in the hundreds of thousands when the donation options were something like $15 for training 5 children, etc. - in other words, are we talking about a 5 year program with massive impact at that budget level, or are there other overhead costs that are not specified?"
Team bios/organizational information
Donors commented on how they read the organizational information and the team bios. They like to see teams implementing a project and good, detailed information on the organization and team increases their confidence in the ability of the organization to complete the project.
"I particularly like to see specific information about the qualifications and motivation of the project leaders. Many projects had almost no useful information in this area."
"I am concerned that staff bios and organization histories are sometimes scant. But even here, unless I've actually heard of the project manager or received information from a third party about him/her, I again probably wouldn't know whether this is a true social entrepreneur with the experience and drive to succeed, or just a dreamer. More generally, as mentioned above, without some reliable outside endorsement, it is almost impossible from the information given to feel secure about whether a project is likely to succeed and worthy of investment of scarce resources. I'd say that may be the most serious concern of all that I have."
Raising funds from other donors
Donors looked at projects to see if others had voted to give the project money. Seeing others choosing that project, increased their confidence in donating to the projects.
"I was definitely affected by the mob mentality. Because I picked my projects closer to the end of the funding period, most of you had already donated. I found myself narrowing each page down to 2 projects, and then checking how much each had already raised."
Theme and country
We can't generalize about donor choice and preferences. Donors believe that certain solutions are more important from their point of view and each has a different idea of what can make the most difference, be it education, water, or health projects. Each donor's view was different -- but they relied on it and the project's clarity to find a match and donate their dollars. Donors look for a project they can relate to or feel a connection to- i.e. they traveled to Nepal or volunteered in Ghana or they think water or education are the keys to a better life.
Project Photo
Some voters commented on how the project photo drew them in initially and may have encouraged them to look more at the project.
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