COVID-19 Crisis: Immediate Digital Donor Behavior Observations

              There are times when donor response can surprise us — an event is not as successful as anticipated, or a pledge program gains amazing lift. Now we can add the COVID-19 crisis to that list. As the health crisis gains momentum, including increasing financial impact, the assumption among Public Media stations has been that support would collapse. However, the behavior we have seen is not what we expected. Digital, with its immediate results, gives us insight into immediate donor behavior in the face of this unprecedented situation. For the majority of our CDP Member Service Bureau client stations, we have seen significant lifts in revenue compared to the previous period the year before. Notably, during that period last year many of those stations were in pledge, yet they are still over-performing this year, with some stations’ revenue up over 100% year-over-year. Now we must ask ourselves — what is driving these gains?

              The simple fact is the majority of our stations are seeing a significant lift in traffic — in some cases 150% year-over-year. It should not surprise us that a lift in traffic might lead to greater giving, even if the website conversion rate has dropped slightly. What is surprising is even stations with down-traffic have seen lifts in revenue. Digging into this a bit more deeply, we can see that the majority of that lost traffic utilized very specialized portions of station sites — travel, student research materials, events — that are heavily impacted by the current crisis. If one looks outside of these specialized areas, traffic to the remainder of the website is up in nearly all cases. This traffic surge is then leading to actual donations, based on our year-over-year comparison.

We have also seen email solicitations hold steady. In nearly all cases examined, open and click rates remain steady, but total raised has increased slightly. This is partially due to an increase in average gift, but also due to a lift in the conversion rate for each email. We should mention, we are currently re-writing our emails to touch on the health crisis and the importance of Public Media during this time. While this will not be every message going forward, we feel it is important to acknowledge the situation in our fundraising for a period

              Examining all the data thus far, we believe we can come to one solid conclusion — do not stop fundraising. The audience is eager for our message and relies on us. Our client stations have made the wise choice to trust us, and it’s been paying off. We’re asking you, the larger public media sphere, to also keep that faith. We need to preserve as much revenue during this time as possible. Once the situation settles and people are more likely to examine their 401(k) or investments, or even emotionally process being laid off, we will see a drop in donations. It is likely that while the rest of the economy begins to recover, Public Media will take the greatest hit.

This moment has a heavy overlay of emotion — people are hungry to come together as a community, and public media supports this. Many people want to help but perhaps don’t know how or logistically cannot. So they are very open to donating money. Donations are how they are able to make a difference and feel good about supporting others during this crisis. We should not take that away from them. By accepting donations, we are serving a purpose beyond even the media we produce — we are helping people feel empowered and giving them hope.