Thoughts on privacy policies for online donations

[dreamshark]

After spending what amounted to a full day making donations to worthy causes online, I have some ideas on what I would like to see in terms of privacy policies. Everything I mention below is something I saw at least once on some site, but I don't think I found a single one that implemented all of these things. If I find one that does, it's going to the very top of my repeat donation list!! Looking at it from the point of view of the donor (who is probably donating to more than one cause and doesn't want to end up drowning in charitable solicitations) these things seem pretty obvious. Apparently when looked at from the point of view of a single organization desperate to get donations, it's not so obvious. So I'm writing this as advice to the organization itself.

If You Are An Organization Hoping to Get Online Donations

1) The Charity Navigator website offers some specific guidelines for donors who are concerned about unwanted mail, spam, etc. ( How to Stop Solicitations by Mail.) A lot of people visit this site when researching charities, so start here to see what kind of privacy control donors are starting to look for. Note that the primary thing that Charity Navigator will rate you on is a clearly posted privacy policy, so start with that.

2) The tricky thing, of course, is what goes INTO the privacy policy. Privacy policies are often full of annoying gobbledy-gook and obvious statements with the one thing people want to know (who are you going to give my address to?) kind of obfuscated at the bottom. I'd say, keep it simple and tell the truth. If you feel that your organization simply cannot survive without selling or trading donor lists, be truthful and try to put the best spin on it.

3) Accept donations via Paypal! This makes donations much quicker and easier, provides the donor with online proof of donation for IRS purposes, and allows donor to keep their personal information private. Oh, and test your website to make sure the Paypal button actually works (and not just with Internet Explorer!).

4) Offer anonymous donation as an option. Many sites have a checkbox for this. If they also offer Paypal as a payment option, this is far more convincing since they don't have to ask for personal information to verify a credit card.

5) If your privacy policy explicitly promises that you won't share personal information with other organizations, place this statement prominently on the website in addition to burying it in the privacy policy. This is a huge selling point for many people and seeing this promise may seal the deal.

6) Offer a set of checkboxes allowing donors to specify how YOUR organization will contact them in the future. Most people just HATE getting monthly mailings, but they may be fine with a quarterly newsletter or yearly donor reminder. I suggest the following set of options:

• anonymous donor (organization keeps no contact info)


• newsletter (by email or snail mail) on request only - specify newsletter frequency


• gift reminders : choice of snailmail or email, specify frequency (allowing user to choose zero)


• no phone contact whatsoever (and don't require a phone number on donor form)


• if you must, ask for yes or no to "share my contact info with partners"

7) When prospective donors email you with questions about your privacy policy, have the answers ready and RESPOND IMMEDIATELY. Remember, if somebody sends you an email like that they are trying to make a decision on where to make a donation, and you are not the only fish in the sea. You might be surprised how few organizations actually respond to such queries and how much of a difference it makes. (I dropped two organizations that I had been planning to donate to and gave $1000 instead to the one that actually responded.)

Let me know what you think. Would these privacy features make a difference to you as a donor? How do they look from the point of view of an organization looking for donations?

Comments

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

I don't know if they'd make a difference to me or not, they all sound useful though.

At the moment I'm interested in looking for results of what I donate - Peg Kerr had a recent note about the microfinance site Kiva so that sounds useful to me. It has listings of grants and results and information about who gets the money.

To a degree it's all too easy to shift the cash without seeing where it goes and what it does.

I'd be very interested in knowing who you selected to give money to this year, though.

Thanks.

Joyce

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"I'd be very interested in knowing who you selected to give money to this year, though."

See my last couple of posts.