Shaking the Donor Engagement Ladder

What’s trending in donor engagement? Cone Communications Social Impact expert Emily Nichols offers some insight in this week’s newsletter.

For most nonprofits today, cultivating an active presence on social media is table stakes for donor engagement. But what organizations often fail to ask is – to what end?

Nonprofit fundraisers traditionally visualize the process of donor engagement as a ladder, with supporters entering via simple "gateway" activities on the bottom rung (e.g., social media activities such as a Facebook "like") and moving up to the pinnacle of support at the top (e.g., committed major donor endowing ground-breaking new program). However, the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) recently featured research that threatens to wobble this proverbial ladder.

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