So what’s a good benchmark for local nonprofits’ Facebook fan count?

It's time to "cowboy up" on Facebook!

Yesterday I posted about Sutter Health’s remarkable growth in Facebook fans.  A loyal reader commented (via email) that it was hard for him to judge how many fans is good.

This led me to wonder about benchmarks for Facebook fan pages of local nonprofits, and to think about the broader value of Facebook fan counts.

So, what’s a good number for a local nonprofit’s fan base?

Here’s my takeaway:  between 500 and 1,000 is good, even very good.  1,000 is a great goal for a local nonprofit.  Sutter Health’s fan base may not really qualify as local as they have facilities dispersed throughout the region.  But their number of fans, and their growth, is something to be aspired to.

Everything I’ve ever seen published about Facebook fan numbers has focused on national or global organizations, not a lot of help for nonprofits in a much smaller pond.  I asked Steve Heath, President and CEO of United Way of the California Capital Region, for a list of larger local nonprofits.  Then I went spelunking on Facebook.

Below is a report on what I found.  What was most noticeable was the disparity between the fan bases, and the lack of correlation between frequency of posts and fans.  The two nonprofits with the largest fan bases do have campaigns underway that are well known:  the Crocker is doing a big expansion, and it’s a tourist destination.  (Yes, tourists do come to Sacramento.)  And Loaves and Fishes has a gigantic fundraising run in which 28,000 people participate.  So those visible activities may have something to do with their success on Facebook.

#1 Crocker Art Museum:  4,561 fans, posts ~1-2 times/week

#2 Loaves and Fishes:  1,318 fans, posts 2-3 times/week… also has 463 fans on its Run to Feed the Hungry fan page

Susan G. Komen – Sacramento Valley Affiliate:  977 fans, posts ~3 times/week

WEAVE:  645 fans, posts infrequently

American Red Cross – Sacramento Sierra Chapter:  511 fans, posts ~1 time/day

Volunteers of America – Greater Sacramento:  294 fans, posts ~3 times/day

St. John’s Shelter:  231 fans, posts infrequently

Salvation Army – Del Oro Division:  214 fans, posts ~1-2 times/week

The SPCA, which Steve suggested, does not seem to have a Facebook fan page.

What does the number of fans have to do with exposure and engagement?

The real value of Facebook may be its value as an amplifier.  I’ll use myself as an example. I use Facebook selectively, so I only have 124 people that I’ve “friended.”  (Daughter Maddie has 851.)  At any given time, Facebook tells me that about five of my friends are on line.  (They might be in the bathroom, but Facebook thinks they’re updating away).  So instead of reaching just one person when my favorite cause posts, a nonprofit reaches me and any of my friends who are cruising around on my profile to get more skinny or check out my photos.  An organization with 500 fans reaches some subset of active users, and some of their friends.  Theoretically, my friends may be more interested in the cause because they can see it’s something that I believe in.  So even if a cause reaches a smaller number of people through Facebook, its message may have greater influence than an impersonal media outlet.

M+R Strategic Services recently published its annual social benchmarking report, which focused on Facebook and Twitter.  The Facebook findings were based on only five organizations, but there were some interesting tidbits.  M+R looked at how many people looked at the fan page each time the organization posted on Facebook; an average of just over a half percent (0.56%) of fans clicked on the status update and actually looked at the fan page each time the organization posted.  The study also looked at interaction. How many fans “liked” something, or commented (either to an organizational post or another fan’s post)?  On average, 2.5% of an organization’s fans used the Facebook tools to do something (e.g. “like” or comment).

• The average monthly fan growth rate was 3.75%, which far outstrips national benchmarks for email list growth.
• The annual “churn” rate – fans who click a button to “remove me from fans” or who hide status updates – averaged out at 24% per year.  That’s greater than national benchmarks for email list churn, but the in-flow still exceeds the out-go by a considerable proportion.
• Participating organizations posted an average of 6 times/week.

My take

Facebook is valuable now, but I think it will become an increasingly important channel for nonprofits to build relationships with potential supporters.

What’s your experience?

Benchmarks to help you assess holiday fundraising progress

A few weeks back, I shared a story about a meeting in which the accountable manager said that he would know if his current campaign was working once the final results were all in.  In other words, when the organization would have no ability to influence the outcome.

My last six posts were inspired by that incident:  first, a post about the importance of early warning indicators (also called leading indicators), and a five part series about easily-implemented tactics because it’s not too late to influence the outcome of a holiday fundraising campaign.  (Here’s a link to the first post, if you’re getting this by email.)

Besides evaluating progress against your own week-by-week 2008 results, here are some benchmarks that may help you to evaluate how well your holiday campaign is going – so you can decide whether or not to turn up the heat.  Remember my focus is always on small, local non-profits.  I’m drawing here on the M+R Strategic Services/NTEN report, “2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study” (available free online), and my own anecdotal experience from working with several non-profits as a pro bono consultant here in Sacramento:

• Email frequency:  According to the M+R report, organizations send 3.5 emails per month on average.  My own experience is that most small, local nonprofits assume they shouldn’t send more than one or two emails per month.  Yes, a few more people unsubscribe over the holidays, but there’s good evidence that non-profits will net more contributions by increasing email frequency some.  For email tips, read that first not-too-late post.
• Email open rates:  Open rates have been dropping over the past three years, according to M+R.  In 2008, the open rate for local nonprofit’s emails was 20%.  This number includes a wide variety of email content types:  appeals, advocacy and news.  Nationally, open rates are lower for fundraising appeals:  only 14%.   M+R points out that open rates are understated, “…open rates are a notoriously unreliable metric… because the technology that allows us to measure an ‘open’ is affected by factors — spam filters, preview panes, image-blocking — that have little to do with whether someone is actually opening (or reading) an email.”  Here in Sacramento, one organization that has been sending e-newsletters for over a year had an open rate of 23.8% on its last email.  Another, sending its first email, had an open rate of 21.1%.  Neither subject line was as compelling as it could have been, and we are hopeful to increase open rates for the next emailings.  The drop in email open rates over the past three years does not mean this tactic has run its course or is not worth the return; to the contrary, response rates are often higher and more immediate than snail mail appeals, not to mention the lower cost of the tactic.  And P.S., don’t panic.  Email open rates typically decline a little in December.   That may well be because the average number of email messages increased from 3.5 for the year to 5.5 in December, according to M+R’s 2008 data, possibly saturating some constituents.
• Click throughs: Click through rates have also been dropping, down to 2.4% according to the M+R metric.  Click  throughs to local nonprofits were a little higher, 4.7% in 2008.  But here’s where my experience is far different.  For the two organizations I mentioned above, the click through rates – that is, the percentage of people who followed a link to the home website or another website linked in the email – was a whopping 22.6% in one case and 19.6% in the other.  So there’s another argument for email:  links make it easy for people to investigate something further on the website and increase engagement, immediately.
• Email fundraising response rates: For local organizations, the national M+R benchmark is 0.09%.  Roughly speaking, if a small non-profit sends a email asking for donations to 1,000 constituents, and 10 people give a gift, it’s hit the national benchmark.  If no one gives, you should do some thinking about why.  But remember, this response rate is for emails with a clear “give money” kind of subject line and content.

The Oxfam case study on page 26 of the free downloadable M+R report is worth the read, and a good not-to-late nudge.