Alan Mitchell has noted a change in information gathering for companies. Data is no longer something we have to go out looking for, quite often our customers are more than happy to provide the information for us, he calls this Volunteered Personal Information (VPI).

The reason we are suddenly quite happy to provide businesses with our personal preferences is the belief that we will get applicable information in return. For example, companies can now find customers who are looking to move house in the next six months and send appropriate information in return. As Mitchell says…

Putting this all together, this is not a superficial blip. It is a once-in-a-century, fundamental sea-change in marketing’s operating environment. For the past 100 years, top-down was the only information flow worth talking about; now, bottom-up is fast supplanting that pivotal role.

I just wonder what this means for charities. The first question that springs to mind is, do we have the resource to sort through customer information in this way? Sure computers can automate this process, but how much is the outlay likely to be for software that can do the job, and are we really thinking of what to do with the resulting data?

That said, I doubt many charities can sit back and let the world change and still insist in communicating in the same old fashioned way. Yes, there are still a group of supporters who like to receive things through the post once or twice a year, but there are a whole swathe of potential clients out there who communicate in a whole new way. Very often they are open with their personal information, but their communication is less formal and less structured than we are used to dealing with. Charities have to change to operate in this new world just as businesses do. We can’t just rely on people stumbling upon us and having enough goodwill at that moment to start a conversation.

Charities, whether they like it or not, have to deal with a huge shift in the way we communicate and share information. It’s not something that can be put off any longer. [Read Alan Mitchell's article online here]