YouTube Helps Drive Donations, Google Study Says

By Heather Joslyn

Chronicle of Philanthropy

Social media’s potential to generate actual giving — as opposed to just clicks, "likes," retweets, and "awareness"— remains unclear. But a study released Tuesday suggests that YouTube may play a role in transforming passive fans of charities’ work into active donors.

People who give money to charity are much more likely than the public to visit YouTube, according to the study, and significantly more donors are checking out the online video site each year.

The study was conducted by Google, which owns YouTube, and Millward Brown Digital. They tracked the online paths of 425,000 visits to nonprofit websites and found that 90 percent of online donors visited YouTube during the previous six months, compared with 65 percent of the public. And the number of donors who visited YouTube grew 18 percent from 2013 to 2014.

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