Signing Up For Charity Newsletters

Armed with the following facts:

• Only 1 in 10 new nonprofit website visitors register (at least share their email address)
• Online fundraising has already hit nearly $1 billion dollars

Lisa Sargent set out to find out "How much money could charities raise if they capture just half of the other 90% of visitors?"

To answer this question, Ms. Sargent made use of Charity Navigator's advanced search tool to develop a list of charities to target. Then she started visiting each of their sites and attempting to sign up for their newsletters and other email communications.

She's releasing her findings in two reports. The first examines the sign-up process and the second looks at what happens after a donor signs up. Here are some of the findings included in her first report:

• 1 out of 10 charities offered no email sign up on their homepage
• Most subscription boxes were hard to locate
• Many of the charities asked for too much or too little information

What have you seen as you've visited charity sites? Have you been frustrated or impressed by how hard or easy it was to sign up for their email communications?



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