Swiss digital donations rose by 14% in 2015 but remain low, says report

Digital donations in Switzerland rose from 2.24% of the total donation volume in 2014 to 2.55% in 2015: an increase of 13.9%.

RaiseNow’s second Digital Fundraising Study Switzerland report is a collaboration with Amazee Metrics and was published for GivingTuesday (29 November): the first year that the country has participated in the event. It shows that while Swiss people donated more to non-profit organisations via digital channels such as SMS and the web than in the previous year, the proportion of donations coming through digital channels still remains low.

Overall, average online donation amounts fell slightly in Switzerland last year, from 114 to 113 Swiss Francs (CHF), although some sectors saw more significant changes that can be attributed to specific events, such the humanitarian aid and development work sector, where charities saw average donation amounts rise from CHF 116 to CHF 142 over the same time period as a result of the Nepal earthquake.

Charities in this sector also had by far the highest average donation amount from one-off donations, at CHF 153, while the crowdfunding sector followed with CHF 105, and handicap, sickness and health was third with CHF 90.

Overall, monthly donations in 2015 had a much higher average total annual volume (approximately CHF 538) compared to yearly donations (around CHF 202), while the customer retention rate seen for monthly donors was the same as that for annual donors.

The study also reveals that credit card payments remained the most commonly used method of payment for online donations, used for 43%, followed by debit cards and e-finance at 22%, while SMS giving accounted for 15% of transactions in 2015. Typically, people were found to give the highest average amounts on Wednesdays at around CHF 130, compared to just CHF 100 on Fridays.

Marco Zaugg, CEO of RaiseNow, said:

“The positive trend from the previous year has been confirmed. We can once again see a double-digit growth in the share of digital donations, even if this does not fully meet our expectations. The biggest surprise from the Digital Fundraising Study 2016 was the confirmation of our previous hypotheses that online donations set to recur monthly achieve a significantly higher total sum within a year than donations set to recur annually.”

The study is based on data from 107 organisations that have all completed their 2015 digital donations in full or in part using RaiseNow tools. In the year under review, these organisations handled 118,705 transactions with a total volume of more than CHF 12.5 million.