The recent Notre Dame Cathedral fire disaster revealed the extent of how philanthropy plays a vital role in humanity when such crises occur.

The determined efforts by the French government and donors around the world saw almost a billion euros pledged within hours to restore the centuries-old building to its former glory.

People, corporations and foundations rushed in with donations to restore the cathedral, despite the fact that humanitarian crises, natural disasters, disease outbreaks and other such calamities are as pressing as ever. 

Yet, unlike other previous global disasters, the cathedral fire recorded virtually no human casualties.

So what motivates such an instant outpouring of donations? Why do we feel compelled to respond to some causes more than others?

More importantly, why has so much been committed for the cathedral, while other calamities such as ongoing starvation tend to receive less attention? Has the way we give evolved

Most people, like you and I, are driven to donate in support of important causes in our community because we are invested emotionally to whatever influences our lives.  However, the bulk of the donations are primarily an emotional reaction to a tragic circumstance, usually involving a large number of casualties and destruction of property.

So it comes as no surprise that the magnitude of the Notre Dame fire attracted a lot of attention within the donor and philanthropic community due to the aesthetic value attached to the cathedral and the widespread destruction witnessed in the wake of the inferno.

As the world stopped and watched the fire ravage the globally recognized iconic landmark, so did the donor and philanthropy community.

A quick look at the faces behind the Notre Dame donations reveals powerful brand names such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, L’Oreal, and French oil producer Total SA just to highlight a few.

Certainly, media of both the news and social variety influenced the response to the Notre Dame Cathedral fire, but more importantly, how the donations are being made. Indeed, the nature and extent of media coverage of the disaster affected the response.

When it comes to giving money, donors and philanthropists are increasingly connecting with their beneficiaries online and online giving is becoming more important. Giving online has become much more common over the past few years, especially among millenials who are younger, educated and those with higher incomes.

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Over the past decade and a half, Internet access has become universal and internet-based communications platforms have boomed. This has seen the rise of various fundraising platforms designed to cater to virtually any cause, with the most popular being crowdfunding, a revolutionary online practice of funding a project or venture by raising small amounts of money from a large number of people through websites such as Kiskstarter or GoFundMe.

Granted, traditional donor organizations are skeptical of crowdfunding though admitting that it is a simpler way to raise money than getting a loan or a grant.

Nowadays, donors want to be more involved and meaningfully engaged and crowd giving helps them feel more connected to the causes and other supporters. An online donation is like a vote of support, useful to the beneficiary on a financial level and to the donor on a psychological level.

Other donor organizations are increasingly turning to the creation of online donation tools for transparency and monitoring of funds and activities. Nonprofits stand to benefit because their funding sources will become more diverse and accessible. And donors will get the satisfaction of seeing their money going toward the specific causes they choose.

Results are important too, with donors seeking to see the biggest possible impact from their donations and to see problems permanently solved. While most development organizations are prone to putting a ‘spin’ on the facts to show them in the best possible light while reporting to donors, online crowdfunding is transparent and the impacts are instantly seen by all the stakeholders.

Surprisingly, Facebook arguably one of the most popular social media sites has already introduced fundraising tools on their sites. It launched a donate button on its social-networking site in 2015 and later added tools that make it easy for people to raise money for their favorite causes.

If you feel like you’ve seen more notifications in your Facebook feed that someone is raising money for a good cause to celebrate a birthday or other milestone, you’re probably right. On Giving Tuesday in November, nonprofits raised $125 million with Facebook tools.

Facebook’s photo-sharing app, Instagram, is also developing a tool for nonprofits to collect donations. The new feature will allow charities and their supporters to include a donate button in their posts. When users click on it, they will go directly to a donation form.

Facebook expects to share details on ways charities and their supporters can use the tool, which is still being developed, in the next few months.

While the Instagram donation button will open a new fundraising opportunity to charities, it’s unclear how much overlap there is between Instagram and Facebook users.

We may think we know the motivation of the French billionaires who donated to the cathedral. Perhaps we do. And perhaps we don’t.

Donors today increasingly see the appeal of putting their money into a firm or a fund that will give them a return while affirming their values or supporting a cause they believe in. Impact investing is one such notion that one can make a difference by investing in a company that has a social mission.

By making philanthropy easy and accessible, digital tools such as online fundraising platforms have encouraged a tremendous surge in giving by individuals and donor organizations. This shift presents opportunities for stakeholders with the resources and capabilities to take advantage of new digital channels, particularly online fundraising, which offers significant room for growth.

It is also an opportunity for industry leaders to start conversations geared towards embracing conventional fundraising on how to leverage digital infrastructure to maximize donor engagements; donation options and other services for the digital platforms; improvement of internal operations by leveraging new digital tools and capabilities; analytics to measure and track key activities, and how can we apply digital tools to manage them; and how to tailor operating models to cater to digital needs.

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–Ernest Nyamasyo, Communication Officer