The NGO sector in Europe is well-established and provides essential services to the citizens of Europe and to communities worldwide. European NGOs, particularly those in Western Europe, are advanced in their use of online technology and due to their commitment to international development, they often serve as the online voice for many small and medium-sized NGOs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
That is the main message from the 2016 Global NGO Online Technology Report, research project by the Public Interest Registry and Nonprofit Tech for Good. The report is an effort to gain a better understanding of how non-governmental organizations worldwide use online technology to communicate with their supporters and donors.
Here below, the findings related to 405 NGOs from 38 countries in Europe.
- 95% of NGOs in Europe have a website.
- 51% use the .ORG domain. Two percent use .NGO. One percent use .ONG. Five percent use .COM. Two percent use .NET. 39% use other domains, predominately country code domains.
- 50% regularly publish a blog.
- 73% regularly send email updates to donors and supporters. Small NGOs have an average of 4,025 subscribers. Medium NGOs have 64,179. Large NGOs have 410,749.
- 61% acceptonlinedonations.Payment methods accepted include credit cards (73%), PayPal (62%), direct debit (59%), mobile text (15%), and digital wallets (6%).
- 92% have a Facebook Page. Small NGOs have an average of 5,999 likes. Medium NGOs have 33,603. Large NGOs have 174,806.
- 85% have a Twitter Profile. Small NGOs have an average of 3,279 followers. Medium NGOs have 17,755. Large NGOs have 128,941.
- 30% have an Instagram Profile. Small NGOs have an average of 335 followers. Medium NGOs have 2,579. Large NGOs have 13,808.
- Other social networks used by NGOs in Europe are YouTube (60%), LinkedIn (56%), Google+ (35%), Pinterest (14%), Tumblr (5%), and Snapchat (1%).
- 39% of NGOs in Europe assign the responsibility of social media management to a communications staff person. 12% have a full-time or part-time social media manager. 19% depend upon volunteers. The remaining 30% assign the responsibility to development, program, administrative, and/or executive staff.
- 76% agree that social media is effective for online fundraising.