Parachute Digital is already well known for innovation in digital fundraising, but what you probably don’t know about us is that we do ANYTHING digital for a not-for-profit organisation. We can help you:
- Develop new products for your clients, beneficiaries or donors
- Acquire nurses or foster parents or NDIS clients
- Create a chat bot as another way for you to support your clients and donors (or to answer the repetitive questions that take up a lot of time)
- Digitise your systems and integrate + automate your data processes.
Download this Digital Innovation booklet to see more examples of non-profit organisations innovating through digital.
The digital innovation we’re talking about
We’ve just come back from the F&P Digi.Raise | Event.Raise conference and we did NOT demo the Metaverse but we did
- ✔️have some great conversations about what Augmented Reality (AR) could do for donor experiences in DM or at real life events.
- ✔️talk at length about how cool it would be if Blockchain tracking was made MANDATORY to all companies selling a physical product (food, electronics, clothes and more) and wouldn’t it be wonderful for the world if their supply chains and product development was available and transparent to us, the people who use and buy them?
- ✔️Explain how voice search on Alexa and Google nest/ home will impact organisations (making it much harder to rank well in Google search results).
Dan Tunley from team Parachute and Andy Grant from Sacred Heart Mission shared all the things that can GO WRONG in a digital acquisition campaign, and how to turn it around for success. You can download the preso slides here.
Shanelle Newton Clapham talked about fundraising trends in different cultures, languages and countries.
You can download the preso slides on the link above.
Examples of augmented reality (AR)
The team fumbled around and showed a bunch of people some cute AR – here are some cool examples:
- iSee Vision simulator (app) – allows us to experience what the world looks like for a person with Glaucoma or cataracts.
- London Pride 🏳️🌈 – Snapchat wanted to celebrate all things LGBTQIA+ so they created a pop-up shop in London where revellers could scan an image/ QR code to activate the Pride experience in the guy it was so cool, but it is geo location specific so we can’t demo it – unless we go to London?
- And a cool local one. For the launch of the Lord of the Rings TV show on Amazon Prime – they did a location specific AR activation at the Sydney Harbour Bridge – where when you looked at the pylons through the app, they became the gateways to middle earth (no, I don’t know the proper name or place within the Lord of the Rings world).
But this is probably more familiar to you – a photo of my daughter Freya using the very popular “entry level AR” lenses on messenger, or Facetime or Snapchat. You also may have dabbled in the lenses on Zoom or Teams like we do sometimes?
Speak to me about Voice Search + Blockchain
We have some very intellectual conversations about Blockchain technology. We all love its ability to measure impact and track supply chains of things like Palm Oil or Tuna, and Coffee or Cacao, so as to create more transparency on where our food, clothes and products come from. We want this so we as consumers can make more informed choices. But although many BIG companies (and orgs) have been working on this for years, we’re not finding any case studies to show. My pessimistic mind can only assume this is because what they’re seeing is NOT something they want to share with their customers and consumers. What do you think, friend? 🤔
- In 2020 Nestle announced it was going to use blockchain for transparency on their supply chain – for coffee, chocolate and palm oil are the hot button issues
- Everyone’s favourite Aldi (except if you’re in Tassie, we don’t have Aldi ☹) claimed to use it to source sustainable seafood for its stores – but I can’t for the life of me find a seafood product or supplier sharing it publicly
- Unilever, which we all use but know as Dove or Lynx or Magnum or Vaseline, claims Block chain will help them become more sustainable
So, as you can see, Blockchain is a bit more of a backend system and companies and orgs are not yet making it or the information it’s finding, very available to us, the public.
Voice search is not new to you, I’m sure. You’ve used Siri or Google plenty on your phone – but you have a SCREEN, so the results you get from your voice search are pretty much the same as what you’re used to online. But what most people and marketers/ fundraisers don’t realise is that when you don’t have a screen, and you ask Alexa or Google a question with your voice, they reply with a voice answer. There is just 1 answer. So, for those of us optimising websites and content for voice search, we need our pages, videos, websites to be the #1 ranked listing in the search results to be the voice search answer. Not an easy feat.
Let’s innovate together
So that’s what we’re thinking about in the innovation space and how fundraisers could use it. If you’re keen to talk about how you can create an interesting experience for your donors and supporters, using tech such as VR (imagine a DM envelope or letter that shares a much richer experience when looked at through your phone camera lens??), give us a nudge.
More info on digital innovation
If you want to explore some more cool stuff, check out these:
- Voice Search: 2023 voice search statistics
- Voice Search: What is it and how does it work?
- WWF uses Blockchain to track tuna industry.
- Blockchain: Amazon Web Services + Nestle video (2 years old)
- AR: Vogue fashion show – physical manikins dressed in Gucci etc, but the lucky invitees could see other cool things, like waterfalls, through the Snap camera lens
- AR: Google translate – point the camera at a book in another language (don’t forget to set the <Language> to ENGLISH setting)
- AR: Soonish book comes to life (via an app)