November 29, 2007 — Charitable organizations are outpacing the business world in their use of social media, according to a study recently completed by The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Center for Marketing Research.

According to the study, “America’s largest charities are turning to the Internet in an effort to increase awareness of their missions and to help connect with their constituencies. While these organizations are known for their nonprofit status and their fundraising campaigns, they demonstrate an acute awareness of the importance of Web 2.0 strategies in meeting their objectives.”

The study, directed by Eric Mattson and Nora Ganim Barnes at the Center for Marketing Research, was based on a nationwide telephone survey last spring of nonprofits named by Forbes Magazine to their list of the 200 largest U.S. charities for 2006, with 76 participating.

“This research proves conclusively that charitable organizations are outpacing the business world in their use of social media,” according to an executive summary of the report. “Seventy-five percent of the charitable organizations studied are using some form of social media including blogs, podcasts, message boards, social networking, video blogging and wikis. More than a third of the organizations are blogging. Forty-six percent of those studied report social media is very important to their fundraising strategy.”

Forbes Magazine’s list of the 200 largest US charities is based on the amount of private, nongovernmental support a charity received in the latest available fiscal year. The list excludes academic institutions, nonprofits that are either funded by a tiny number of donors (such as most private foundations) or don’t solicit, and religious organizations that don’t report numbers.

The analysis was based on detailed interviews with the 76 participating charities, which are diverse in mission, average gifts, and total revenue. They included some of the best known charities in the country, such as the Salvation Army, American Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, Habitat for Humanity International, and Easter Seals.

On the Forbes top 200 list, three of the responding organizations are in the top 10, five are in the top 25, and 39 are in the top 100. The participating nonprofits have headquarters in every major US city including New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, and San Francisco.

The 76 charity executives who responded were asked detailed questions concerning social media and their organization. In order to enable a valid comparison, this study followed a similar pattern to similar social media research that the Center conducted on corporations and higher education, and asked detailed questions about the organizations’ familiarity with, usage of, monitoring of and attitude towards six common forms of social media (blogs, wikis, podcasts, online video, message boards, and social networking).

Usage Findings

Charities are very likely to use online video, blogging, podcasting and social networking sites, according to the report, and are highly engaged with their audience in a variety of ways using Web 2.0 technologies.

“It is also interesting to note that charities are blogging at a higher rate than any group of businesses studied to date and at approximately the same rate as college admission departments,” the authors said.

Earlier research found that 8% of the Fortune 500, 19% of the Inc. 500, and 33% of U.S. university admissions departments currently having a public blog.

Managing and Monitoring

Executives at the charities surveyed reported that their blogs were most often written by and managed by their in-house PR or communications staff. While they reported that social media was key for their fundraising strategy, most measured the success of their blogs using traditional metrics like number of hits or comments instead of donations generated.

The authors suggested that donations come in through channels other than public facing blogs or that the role of the blog is to increase awareness of the organization.

Most promote their blog through their website and plan to increase usefulness by expanding authors, adding multimedia or trying new formats. Just over half of the responding executives said that their blogs were available through RSS feed.

In previous studies, respondents were asked if they monitored the online “buzz” about their business or organization. The executives from the charities were more likely to do so. It appears that charities are very concerned about their image and the online conversation that might involve them. By monitoring these online conversations in blogs and other forms, the organization can quickly respond if necessary.