Understanding what motivates people to donate to a media outlet is a complex challenge shaped by multiple factors. Here, La Marea (Taktak project partner) explores key strategies to inspire and encourage contributions.
“We are independent because we only depend on you”, that is a sentence you can hear often at La Marea and Climática, two outlets published by a nonprofit cooperative. Reader financial support is crucial for independent media outlets like ours, which do not admit branded content and adhere to a strict ethical code for advertisers, but what kind of support do we receive?
All the online publications that we edit are copyleft and free-access. We also publish a bimonthly magazine available exclusively to paying subscribers. Thus, our financial model is based on paid subscriptions, through which readers receive the magazine and gain access to events we organize for the community. Additionally, many supporters choose to make one-time donations to help sustain our platform.
Types of Donations
La Marea and Climática readers can donate via our e-commerce platform, accessible directly from our website’s homepage and every article. In addition, we launch occasional crowdfunding campaigns -approximately every two years- to encourage donations for specific objectives.
The last campaign was Boost the Climática, the Climate Information Cooperative (Impulsa la cooperativa de información Climática) and it was launched to strengthen Climática as a media outlet and enhance its role as a cooperative that collaborates with other organizations.
Following this, we compare both types of donations.
Regular Donations via the Climática Website
A user can donate through a button on our website located on the homepage and the end of the articles published.
- Donations can be made as one-time contributions or converted into recurring subscriptions.
- They are often made after reading an article.
- They are essential for the sustainability of our media, ensuring a steady income.
In our case:
- 86.5% of donors have contributed multiple times.
- Despite strong support, 83.6% of donors have not yet become regular paying subscribers and prefer to provide one-time contributions without committing to a subscription.
Donations via a Crowdfunding Campaign
The sense of urgency created by a fixed deadline, the ability to make a one-time donation without further commitment, and the benefits of receiving rewards are three key aspects of this type of donation.
- These are one-time contributions made within the scope of a specific campaign.
- They aim to achieve a defined goal (e.g., improving media infrastructure, funding a journalism project, expanding the team, etc.).
- They often include rewards based on the level of contribution (subscriptions, event access, exclusive materials, etc.).
- They seek significant engagement over a short period to reach a financial target.
In the case of the latest Climática’ crowdfunding campaign:
- This campaign attracted over 2,000 donors, with a surge in contributions near the deadline, highlighting the importance of urgency in fundraising efforts.
- In crowdfunding campaigns, the percentage of recurring donations is significantly lower than through our website (only 10.6% of crowdfunding donors repeated their contributions). This is partly due to the compressed time frame for measurement (80 days). However, when analyzing participation in previous crowdfunding campaigns, 54.5% of donors had contributed more than once.
- In this type of campaign, offering interesting rewards is crucial—78.2% of donors requested a reward in exchange for their contribution. For this reason, we designed incentives such as complimentary subscriptions, aiming to engage donors throughout the reward period and eventually convert them into paying subscribers.
- Only 25% of crowdfunding donors already hold a paid subscription to our media.
- Beyond these individual contributions, we also launched a campaign targeting cooperatives that, like our publisher, believe in teamwork to drive meaningful change. We encouraged them to collaborate by donating to our cooperative, offering rewards tailored to them, such as online training courses for their teams and advertising for their services.
Why Do People Donate?
This is the key question. Understanding what actions or emotions drive donations is essential for any media outlet. It is crucial to determine whether the topics we publish influence donation levels. While the logical answer would seem to be positive, the reality is not always so clear.
For example, in the past three months, lamarea.com experienced traffic spikes on specific dates—December 18 and 27, January 9 and 29, and February 5—due to highly engaging articles. However, donation peaks during this period did not coincide with these dates. Instead, the highest number of donations was recorded on January 14.
So, how do we determine why people donate? Crowdfunding campaigns provide clearer insights through donor comments. Among the most frequently cited reasons for donating are:
- Media values: Donors emphasize independence and quality journalism as key factors.
- Coverage of the climate crisis: Many donors appreciate our focus on climate change, an issue often neglected by other media.
- Science-based information: Access to scientific and critical knowledge is a major motivator.
- Combating misinformation: Donors value our efforts to counteract fake news and climate change denialism.
What Worked in Our Latest Crowdfunding Campaign?
The campaign Boost the Climática, the Climate Information Cooperative (Impulsa la cooperativa de información Climática) succeeded due to a combination of key strategies:
- Commitment to Independent Journalism: Climática is a cooperative, nonprofit media outlet owned by its workers and readers, allowing it to maintain editorial independence and avoid the influence of major shareholders or executives. Many donors specifically cited Climática’s independence as their reason for contributing.
- Active Community Participation: The campaign fostered a committed community and sought support from like-minded media outlets and subscribers of La Marea, Climática’s sister publication.
- Diversified Content Offerings: In addition to written articles, Climática expanded its content through its podcast, La Climática, training courses, and audiovisual materials.
- Transparency in Objectives: The campaign clearly communicated its goals, including establishing itself as a leading source of climate crisis information, expanding its subscriber base, and producing new podcast seasons. This transparency built trust and motivated donors.
- Attractive Rewards for Backers: Offering incentives such as subscriptions, exclusive event access, and educational materials encouraged community participation and financial support.
These strategies helped the campaign exceed its minimum funding target, reaching 108% with contributions from 2,178 backers.
Conclusions
Determining what drives donations to support a media outlet is a complex task influenced by multiple variables, including competition from other campaigns or similar media organizations. However, we can highlight key takeaways:
- Engage an audience that values the media’s core principles.
- Reach audiences through diverse formats and platforms where they consume information, such as social media, newsletters, or our website.
- Offer recurring donation options to ensure regular support.
- Provide special incentives that add value to donor contributions.
- Aim to convert one-time donors into long-term paying subscribers.
Which solution works for you? Tell us in the comment section!
Author: LA MAREA / CLIMÁTICA