1. Disruption is a national study of member-based advocacy organizations conducted by the
Monitor Institute and funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In lieu of the
traditional white paper, we are presenting a set of tools for engagement around the issues
raised by the study. We do this for two reasons:
(1) The findings point to multiple dynamic tensions. Nothing is settled about how even the
most relevant and impactful advocacy organizations engage constituencies or attracts
resources. A conventional report – presenting data from a moment in time – would be
immediately out of date and easily dismissed; and,
(2) Since the story is unfolding rapidly, we want the organizations and their funders to be a
part of its telling.
This slide deck pulls together some of the most provocative findings of the study and is
meant to be a tool for discussion and dialogue. Feel free to use it to frame a discussion
with colleagues, your board, your constituents and/or your members. Participate in our
Working Wikily Blog on the topic.
Complete findings – along with the research instruments – can be found on the Monitor
Institute website at http://www.monitorinstitute.com/disruption.
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2. This brief deck is organized into three parts. In part one, we briefly review the genesis and
goals of the project and we discuss our approach to the research. In part two, we highlight
some of the more provocative findings. Part three includes a set of conclusions and
preliminary recommendations – for funders and for member-based advocacy organizations
themselves.
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3. This project was initiated by Chris DeCardy, Vice President of the Packard Foundation. He
was concerned about the sustainability of member-based advocacy organizations,
historically supported by large numbers of loyal, annual donors. Are they making the
transition into our Web 2.0 world? What are the new models for sustainable advocacy
efforts? How might foundations like Packard best support and encourage important
advocacy work going forward?
The study design combined in-depth interviews with a census of national member-based
advocacy organizations with annual budgets of over $1 million.
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4. We began with 15 in-depth interviews, using a detailed protocol. These interviews helped the study
team begin to understand the current stresses and challenges facing established member-based
advocacy organizations. We also heard from some young and growing organizations about their
newly developed approaches to engaging constituents and garnering support.
In the interviews, we asked leaders of marketing and development efforts at a range of both small
and large organizations about what they were experiencing -- the challenges of recruiting new
members, of developing new revenues, and about their experiments with new media. The
interviews hinted at trends and helped the study team design the survey.
At the outset, we intended to field a survey to a diverse and stratified sample of 60 organizations.
Once we did a preliminary look at the number of advocacy organizations nationally with budgets of
over $1 million we realized that, without great expense, we could do a proper census. Referencing
the national taxonomy of nonprofits, our research team combed through the list of registered
nonprofits for all those that categorized themselves as advocacy organizations. We supplemented
this list with qualifying grantees of each of the study’s funders.
You can find the interview protocol and survey instrument as well as a comprehensive report on its
findings at http://www.monitorinstitute.com/disruption.
Working with a broad definition of “member,” we started out with 537 candidate organizations.
The list was culled to a total of 443 qualifying organizations )e.g. organizations engaged in advocacy
that had a membership base and a budget of $1 million or more.) Of those organizations, 259
responded making our total response rate close to 40%. Since the sampling fraction of the target
population was so large, we have confidence in the robustness and generalizability of the results.
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6. Going in, we had some working hypotheses about drivers of change in approaches to
engagement and models of support among advocacy organizations. Interview and survey
findings confirmed many of our hypotheses. At the forefront are technology changes and
the social networking enabled by Web 2.0 technology and tools and embraced by Millenials
and Gen Y-ers.
Web 2.0 technologies are giving people new vehicles for self-organizing around social and
political issues and causes – both within organizations and outside traditional forms and
structures. In addition, there are profound demographic and generational changes linked
to and leveraged by the new technologies. Millenials (born in 1981 and after) have adopted
new technologies as their own. They apply FaceBook, Twitter and more to self-organizing
and to their participation in the causes they care about. They are simply not as interested
in joining established member-based organizations like the Sierra Club or Planned
Parenthood. Their participation is more sporadic and activity or event-based. As a
consequence, traditional nonprofits are struggling to recruit and retain a new generation of
supporters as their staunchest members (Boomers) become grayer. The recent economic
downturn put all of this into stark relief.
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7. There’s no quid pro quo with the new generations—the value proposition is not quite clear.
These younger people are motivated more towards one-time gifts, activities, and events.
Whereas with the traditional membership organization of the past the members counted
on the organization to take action Millenials and Gen Y-ers want to influence and to act.
Study participants reflected on these changes. Many voiced concern and confusion about
where to go from here but few are responding to the shifts they observe with a truly new
approach.
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8. Overall, member-based advocacy organizations are adding experiments with new social
media to all of what they already do through their Websites, Email, Op Eds, Direct Mail and
Listserves.
For member-based advocacy organizations, the complexity of managing communications
with constituents and donors is increasing.
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9. These organizations recognize the need to innovate and experiment with new social media
but direct mail, email, and website remain the most effective tools for fundraising. The
expense of direct mail is going up, the yield rate is going down, but there is no replacement
strategy.
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11. The eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, published annually by NTEN provides an interesting
perspective on email advocacy and fundraising. The 2011 report looked at 40 organizations.
There is some good news about online fundraising, it’s on the rise but most online gifts are
coming as one-time donations. This is consistent with what we heard and saw about the
engagement of Boomers vs Millennials. Boomers are more likely to give you an annual gift;
the younger activists are very engaged and committed but do so more in response to an
event or issue.
And, it’s not that the percent return on email is so much higher than direct mail but the
incremental costs of direct mail fundraising are minor when set against the rising costs of
printing and postage for direct mail.
Email doesn’t actually give you better yield – at least not yet, but it is less expensive. And
no one yet knows what to replace direct mail with. New social media is still an emergent
strategy.
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13. The relative rankings here are similar to what we saw before, with a continued reliance on
old media. Direct mail is a little lower on the list here, since this is more about taking
action, where online engagement is more effective. And also, all of these tools have been
rated as a 2 or above in effectiveness out of 4. So they are ascribing higher effectiveness for
these tools for engagement than for fundraising.
Several study participants articulated the big challenge around engagement to be
integrating online and offline activities to get the kind of engagement they want.
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14. One of the most startling findings of our census was that 10% of respondents had just
begun to experiment with new social media in the last year, and another 53% had just
started in the last two years.
The model is inevitably shifting but it’s moving more slowly than we thought it could or
should.
Few have mastered the new model. Our conclusion: This is a time of disruption and
experimentation, and the best way to get through it would be to accelerate the
experimentation and diffuse the learning from experiments.
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15. One in five respondents said their revenues decreased over the last 5 years, 5% saw no
change in overall revenues, and ¾ reported increased revenues from 2005 to 2010. Given
the degree of anxiety about what the next model will be, combined with the relatively
recent advent of new social media and uncertainty about how to best use it, you’d expect
member-based advocacy organizations to be worried about their financial future. Oddly
enough, they’re not. And they’re optimistic because they have continued high expectations
of foundations.
Looking ahead to 2012, three-quarters expect continued increased in revenues and only
10% expect to lose ground. We asked survey respondents to project the sources and
percentages of revenue for 2012. And the largest share of their budgets is expected to
come from foundations.
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16. The two case studies briefly presented here were chosen because they were frequently
cited in interviews and noted by survey respondents as models of effective use of new
social media.
And the two examples offer a nice contrast. MomsRising is using new media to create a
new value proposition, and EDF has used it to refresh their existing efforts.
MomsRising is similar to the MoveOn.org model. They are reaching out to a wide variety of
participants through emails and social networks. But instead of providing an advocacy
“benefit,” (e.g. If you support us, we will fight for… on your behalf.) they principally provide
opportunities for their members to act. Their goal is to build a movement for a more
family-friendly America. They use new social media tools to facilitate and inspire their
constituents rather than to broadcast to them.
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17. EDF provides an interesting contrast to MomsRising. It has a longer history and a larger
membership – which can make it challenging to change or to adopt new approaches.
They’ve started experimenting with all forms of new media, increasingly using new social
media as a platform not only to broadcast but also to engage constituencies, allowing
members to affect EDF’s evolving agenda.
They have used two tools with great success. One is a network of educational blogs. People
recognize the relevance of the information provided and how and smoothly they are run.
The other is their Innovation Exchange, which is a networked approach to engaging
members.
EDF is starting to behave like MomsRising but they had the added challenge of needing to
re-tool their operations to integrate and take advantage of the power of new social
media.They have integrated their marketing efforts so that their director of marketing is in
charge of both online and offline. And EDF is also using research to understand how to
reach the younger demographic.
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20. This is an inflection point for member-based advocacy organizations as they try new
approaches and test their relevance for a new time and a new demographic.
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23. Discussion questions:
1. Is it better to distribute the responsibility for social media or to centralize leadership
within an organization? What are the arguments pro and con?
2. As organizations experiment with new social media, we are beginning to see the rise of
the “Chief Learning Officer.” What role could/should such a person play?
3. What can be done to accelerate experimentation and to diffuse learning about the use
and potential efficacy of new social media for fundraising and engagement?
4. What does a strong and continued reliance on foundation funding mean for the
relevance of advocacy organizations?
5. How will the evolving external context (advances in technology, aging Boomers,
economic volatility, etc.) affect the ability of member-based advocacy organizations to
be effective and garner needed support?
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