How Advocacy Groups Faced Member Decline in 2011

Monitor Institute’s May 2011 study found that member-based advocacy organizations were struggling to attract, keep, and raise money from supporters. It argued that social media created new possibilities, but most groups had not yet connected those tools to a workable fundraising model.

A changing supporter base

Monitor Institute’s national study, Disruption: Evolving Models of Engagement and Support, focused on large advocacy organizations that had long depended on loyal annual donors. The central concern was a weakening connection between those organizations and people who might once have become members.

The study described a traditional donor as someone who sent at least 25 US dollars after receiving a direct-mail request. That model had supplied many groups with a familiar source of support, but it did not fit every newer supporter.

Monitor Institute found that younger donors often encountered causes through social networks and mobile phones. They were less likely to attach themselves to one established organization, less loyal to a single group, and less persuaded by the value of membership itself.

The study treated this as more than a simple membership problem. It asked how organizations built around many committed yearly donors could adapt to a more connected environment while finding durable ways to support advocacy.

Uncertain models of engagement

Monitor Institute released its findings as plain and annotated slides instead of a white paper. The format was intended to help organizations and funders circulate the findings and talk through them, because the authors did not see settled answers on engaging people or raising money.

That uncertainty shaped the study’s description of the period as one of disruption and testing. Organizations faced pressure to change, but there was no agreed replacement for the membership and fundraising methods that had supported them before.

The report’s basic answer was not that one new model had already won. It was that groups needed to run experiments faster and share what those experiments revealed. That approach treated learning as part of the response, rather than waiting for certainty before acting.

Monitor Institute’s study was funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Social media still apart

Many respondents understood that they needed to test social media. Yet Monitor Institute found that direct mail, email, and websites still carried the main fundraising work, and most organizations had no plan for replacing those methods.

Half of the survey respondents had only begun trying social media during the prior two years. That meant social media was still new in many organizations, even as supporters were already using networks and phones to connect with causes.

Few respondents had brought social media together with both communications and fundraising. A group could have a social media presence without having made it part of the systems used to tell its story, build relationships, and receive donations.

This gap was important because the study did not present social media as a separate activity. The larger issue was whether organizations could connect newer forms of participation with the financial support needed for advocacy.

Membership and fundraising pressures

Monitor Institute found that respondents recognized the need to rethink both fundraising and membership. Even so, foundation funding remained an important source of support, showing that many groups had not yet found a dependable alternative.

The study included short case studies of MomsRising and the Environmental Defense Fund, two organizations frequently associated with social media use. Their inclusion showed interest in organizations that were testing different ways to reach and involve people.

Beth Kanter, writing about the study, quoted a 33-year-old in digital PR who saw little reason to join one organization when interaction with many was possible. The commenter said loyalty came from seeing work clearly, engaging media, opportunities to act, and contact with people who cared about the same issues.

That view matched the study’s broader finding. Membership had become less attractive to some younger supporters, while visible work, participation, and networked connection had become more important parts of engagement.