Aperto Wins Online Account for WWF Germany – Relaunch of Information and Fundraising Platform Planned

The new WWF website is linked with various social media and campaigns, and should arouse even more people’s interest for nature conservation and donating in the future.

WWF Germany wanted to utilise the web to get people excited about nature conservation in a more direct manner, and also motivate them to make donations. The non-profit organisation therefore turned to Aperto for the extensive relaunch of its website, and also contracted the agency with the development of additional online communication activities. The web and fundraising experts from Aperto have already worked successfully for different NGOs/NPOs in the past such as SOS-Kinderdorf, Médecins Sans Frontières, the Johanniter and the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW).

The new WWF site will be built in accordance with universal web design principles. This means that patrons and interested parties will have the best possible access to the site’s contents in every kind of usage scenario. In addition, topics, campaigns and donation options will be merged into a user-friendly structure.

“We’re pleased to be able to help the WWF achieve its goals on the web. Nature conservation is an important subject that can't ever be given enough attention. But the competition for supporters and donations is stiff: around 550,000 associations and 18,000 private foundations vie for their aims in Germany alone. The new WWF website will attract attention and become a central hub for all offline and online campaigns, as well as the social media activities of the WWF,” as Florian Gäng, Unit Director at Aperto AG, explains.

Background: Huge Potential for Online Donations in Germany

Many organisations try to attract additional donators through Internet activities. The effort is worthwhile: according to the American “eNonprofit Benchmark Study 2010”, donations made online are an average of $81.33 more than those made offline. At the same time though, the proportion of active donators on the web has been rather low up to now: according to one representative survey,* around 63 percent of all citizens in Germany support charitable organisations, but only seven percent actually use the Internet to make donations. The few online donations are mainly made by people referred to as "digital natives”, i.e. young people who have grown up with digital media. People over the age of 60, the “silver surfers”, are the most active benefactors with a proportion of 72 percent, yet they only make up three-percent of all online donators. There is great potential for successful fundraising on the web amongst both young and older aged users, and this potential is growing in parallel to the increased spread and use of the Internet. A universally designed website which merges all communication activities and attractively conveys content on all end devices is recommended for organisations that want to leverage this potential.

*On behalf of the high-tech association Bitkom, the Forsa opinion research institute conducted a representative poll of the donation activities of 1,000 German citizens.