One of the big benefits of this kind of fundraising is that it enables charities to reach younger supporters.

It is difficult to find estimates on the importance of new media fundraising, but it is clearly a fast-growing market. ‘It is still a relatively small part of the overall fundraising market but a rapidly expanding one, with some charities getting up to 10 per cent of their income from it,’ says Megan Pacey, director of policy and campaigns at the Institute of Fundraising (IoF).

The IoF has held several sell-out workshops on new media fundraising and is holding a mini-conference on the topic at its annual convention in July. One of the conference speakers is Craig Hanna, training director at internet marketing publisher E-consultancy.

He says one of the key elements in new media fundraising is its speed: ‘It makes it very useful for fundraising in response to a specific event, such as the Asian tsunami, because you can immediately contact supporters.’

As well as this kind of appeals fundraising there are several other uses of new media, including enabling online donations via the charity’s website, communication with donors via email or text, or affinity schemes in which supporters can ensure that their chosen charity receives a percentage of payments made in online shopping.

There seems to be significant potential for the latter, with a survey by online shopping mall portal 4RCharity concluding that 84 per cent of people would buy goods online if it helped raise money for a cause they cared about. However, the survey found that only a small proportion of charities were exploiting the possibility of online technology.

One of the obstacles, says Megan Pacey, is that a lot of smaller charities do not have technological expertise in-house and contract out the building and maintenance of their websites.

For such charities, embarking on new media fundraising can seem intimidating. But Sarah Hughes, who runs fundraising and communications consultancy Charity 21,  says that seeing new media fundraising as only appropriate for bigger charities is a misconception.

‘People think you need to spend a lot of money but it’s not true, as these new media are often as accessible as existing techniques, such as paperless direct debit,’ says Hughes.

For some new media techniques it is relatively straightforward to raise money, such as through affinity deals with websites like everyclick.com, an internet search engine which donates half its revenue to charities that have signed up. By April 2006 the site had donated nearly £19,000 to charities.

‘The technology is evolving so quickly,’ Pacey says, pointing to the advanced messaging technology called WAP (wireless application protocol). This could enable charities to cheaply send a scrollable ‘window’ to a donor, in which the donor could donate, include Gift Aid and do other things, such as giving their consent to future communication. It would also enable larger donations to be made than are currently permitted using SME texts.

According to Victoria Webster, product development manager for Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) fundraising supporter services, new technology has given smaller charities a genuine tool to raise money from outside their usual catchment area.

Donations made through CAF’s online services, such as www.cafonline.org, have been growing dramatically. Webster says: ‘The internet has been a boon for smaller charities and we’re seeing donations coming in from all over the world, even for small organisations, as long as they can market themselves online.

There are a number of organisations like CAF which can help smaller charities promote their online presence. But Webster  adds that it is important that charities do not neglect new donors recruited via new media: ‘These one-off donors can become regular givers if charities develop relationships with them.’

Sarah Hughes of consultancy Charity 21 argues that charities need to take care not to mix up the medium and the message: ‘When I see what charities are doing with new media there often seems to be a lack of creativity and ability to really engage with the donor.’

As an example, she points to the fact that, on many charity websites, the online donations process is not integrated with other parts of the site. She says: ‘The donation process can seem a bit separate, so it would be good to use case study material or other editorial to enthuse people and integrate that material with the donations process.’

The challenge for charities, therefore, is to marry the capability of new media technologies with the creativity and donor development techniques used for other fundraising approaches.

If that can be achieved then the voluntary sector will be able to recruit future generations of supporters and donors.

‘But it is important that the sector does not leave new media fundraising to the big players, as we need all kinds of charities to get involved and exploit these new technologies,’ says Hughes.