Waves of cash: tsunamis unleash online giving.

Save the Children in Westport, Conn., raised roughly $50,000 a month online in the 23 months through November 2004. In the month after tsunamis struck South Asia last December 26, Web donations to the charity averaged $50,000 an hour, peaking on December 31 at $96,000 an hour.

The charity, which raised $33.3 million that month, just more than one-third of it online, previously had relied heavily on direct mail appeals and phone-bank solicitation, but now sees the Web as key to its future, said Fiona Hodgson, vice president for leadership giving and public affairs.

"Going forward, we will change our marketing plans to focus more on the Web," she said. "The Internet will be the main source for new donors and a great way to communicate with existing donors."

Hodgson and other experts said online giving, which showed steady but modest gains after a big surge following September 11, 2001 terror attacks, finally hit the "tipping point" after the tsunamis, and is here to stay.

"All of a sudden, it's unquestioned that the Web has fundamentally changed what's available and what's possible in terms of raising money around a disaster-relief effort," said Sheeraz Haji, CEO of GetActive Software in Berkeley, Calif.

Web surge

Online giving for relief exceeded $350 million for the first two weeks after the tsunamis struck South Asia, compared to $215 million raised online after September 11, 2001 terror attacks, according to media and industry estimates.

In the first month alone, the American Red Cross raised $228 million, roughly half of it online, including $83.9 million through redcross.org and another $22.9 million through Seattle-based Amazon and Yahoo! in Sunnyvale, Calif., said Leigh-Anne Dennison, a Red Cross spokesperson in Washington, D.C.

Amazon, in just less than four weeks after posting an online-giving button on its main page on December 28, handled 165,000 donations totaling $15.5 million, said Craig Berman, director of platform and technology communications.

Boston-based Oxfam America raised $19.5 million, including $13 million online, while Atlanta-based CARE USA collected $16 million, including $6.1 million online, with first-time donors accounting for 85 percent of tsunami donors to the charity.

Online cultivation

In the first two weeks after the tsunamis, Network for Good in Washington, D.C., processed more than $10 million from nearly 80,000 individual donors for relief efforts by several dozen charities.

"People have become more comfortable with using their credit cards online. They've established relationships with charities and with intermediaries that help them give to charity," said Ken Weber, president of Network for Good.

One nonprofit client, Life for Relief & Development in Southfield, Mich., generated 90 percent of its relief fund through online donations in three weeks after the tsunamis, with existing donors accounting for 80 percent of those online gifts, he said.

The surge, he said, "clearly points to the fact that the internet is a vital channel of their ability to communicate with donors and constituents more broadly to build relationships."

Workplace giving

Two days after the waves hit, Booz Allen Hamilton in McLean, Va., decided to launch a special workplace drive, and sent two email messages over one week to its 16,000 employees saying it would partially match their gifts.

The appeals generated more than 1,100 employee contributions totaling more than $200,000, a total expected to grow by another $30,000 to $50,000, in addition to a $50,000 corporate match, said Joseph Suarez, director of community relations.

Don Sodo, president of America's Charities, which has 30 clients that use its online system for workplace campaigns, including Booz Alien and six others that used it for tsunami fundraising, said online giving has undergone a "revolution" because technology lets charities reach donors quickly with appeals, and provide content about needs and real-time feedback about the impact of gifts.

Over the long term, he said, technology "creates the possibility of a relationship" that employers and charities can develop.

Some 17 clients of CreateHope in Bethesda, Md., raised $8.5 million through 31,000 pledges in two weeks for 12 charities. "Technology has enabled even smaller charities to have the ability to communicate with a donor easily," said Adam Goozh, president and CEO.

Giving technology

NetHope, an alliance of 15 of the world's largest relief organizations that serves as their international telecom department, in the second half of 2004 worked with Cisco Systems and British satellite firm Inmarsat to develop NetReliefKit, a "wireless office." The effort, including a mobile satellite link to the Internet, is funded by both firms, with additional satellite funding from Microsoft.

For the tsunami relief effort, NetHope delivered kits to Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam, Mercy Corps and the International Rescue Committee, all for stationary offices in Sumatra. And another is going to Actionaid in India for installation in a van serving several locations.

Relief agencies are using the kits for tasks such as telemedicine, coordinating services, sending and receiving email, uploading disaster photos for use in fundraising, and conveying statistics on relief efforts and budgeting, said Dipak Basu, executive director of NetHope and a Cisco Leadership Fellow who was director of customer advocacy at Cisco.

Virtual relief

Aidmatrix, a nonprofit in Dallas, that operates a Web site on which relief agencies can post their needs and donors can make cash or in-kind donations to meet those needs, raised more than $340,000 through virtual aid drives for tsunami relief during the first two weeks, a total that had grown to $450,000 by late January.

And this spring, aidmatrix.org is launching a Global Disaster Relief Network that will be customized to handle in-kind donations to relief agencies in the wake of disasters.

"In-kind giving at the very beginning of a disaster may not be the most effective way to give," said Margaret Gardner, vice president for marketing. "Our tool will not only let the agencies post what they need, it will also let the potential donors see the quantity that is needed, and when and where it is needed."

In partnership with Toronto-based Free the Children, Aidmatrix in early January launched aidmatrix.org/adoptavillage to handle online giving for ongoing relief needs in South Asia.

Aidmatrix now offers a similar tool for free to any relief agency or nonprofit looking for long-term support, charging only a processing fee of 7 percent of funds collected.

Online challenges

Gearing up for future disasters and ongoing fundraising will require nonprofits to develop technology and marketing strategies to cultivate donors, deliver appeals when needed, track results and handle surges in giving.

"An online system does not guarantee high participation rates," Sodo said. "These campaigns are not faceless campaigns, and in the workplace you still have to develop a sense of shared commitment and feeling and concern."

Charities need to "be ready for your big event, your tsunami," Haji said. "And, it really does matter what you have in place for those first couple of weeks."

Simply handling heavy online traffic from donors after a disaster also can be a challenge.

To cushion overload from a benefit concert that NBC aired January 15 that raised $18.3 million for the Red Cross, backup servers were provided by Red Cross partners, including Kintera, Convio, GetActive and Yahoo!.

With online giving growing, said Dennison, it is "important for charities to be seriously looking at investing money in making sure their systems can handle it."

Todd Cohen is editor and publisher of Philanthropy Journal, an online newspaper at www.philanthropyjournal.org. He can be reached at [e-mail].