When I first came on board at Artez, our primary software offering was a reliable, user-friendly, secure way to manage peer to peer donations for event-based fundraising. Over the years we've really expanded both our vision of what online fundraising can be, and also the functionality and services that we offer our clients. These days, what gets me most excited about my work is the diversity of clients that I get to work with (definitely not just event groups anymore), as well as the feeling that I actually get to witness, and be part of, the evolution of fundraising online. I find it inspiring, and so I wanted to share three of my observations about the evolving world of online fundraising. Read on...

1. No longer is online fundraising reserved solely for large, national, urban-based organizations.

Increasingly, we're working with small groups, on small as well as large events, and with organizations in far-flung corners of the world. We're seeing the expansion of online fundraising across all sectors of the nonprofit world.

2. Once groups start to realize the potential of raising money online, they start incorporating online thinking across their operations.

Many of our clients used to have an online fundraising component for just one or two of their fundraising initiatives over a year... and now we see some groups with upwards of 20 initiatives that include an online component! As more and more people grow more comfortable using the web, and more comfortable doing financial transactions online, this is a very good thing for fundraising. And finally..

3. Innovation breeds more innovation.

One really cool thing that's happening in online fundraising is that our "event" software is being used by organizations that don't actually run events, but have found that many of the learnings about raising funds for events apply to campaigns as well. Nothing But Nets, for instance, raises money to send bed nets to Africa to prevent malaria. There's no event... but they've made incredibly successful use of our event software, empowering fundraisers to create "teams", and raise money from their friends. The basic principles that people give to people and people raise more money when they are working in teams -- they are the same principles that's been used with great success by so many walks and runs for causes. The UN Foundation has raised more than $800,000 dollars so far online in this way! And so as other groups see the new ideas that other groups come up with to use fundraising software, the whole world of raising money online starts to expand and evolve. We love seeing our software help to innovate new ways of fundraising online... so keep it coming.