In this month’s Let’s Talk episode, Angela Johnson and B Crittenden chat about antitrust in Big Tech with AMT Lab contributor Sam Houle. They also discuss safe ways to celebrate and connect over the upcoming holidays and recent trends in fundraising leading up to #GivingTuesday.
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Angela: Welcome to the Let's Talk series of Tech in the Arts, the podcast for the Arts Management and Technology Lab. My name is Angela Johnson, the Podcast Producer.
B: And I'm B Crittenden, the Technology and Interactive Content Manager.
Angela: Each month, we review trending stories and discussions with topics such as streaming, artificial intelligence, marketing, social media, inclusion, fundraising, and much more. Our goal is to exchange ideas, bring awareness, and stay on top of the trends. In this month's episode, we will discuss antitrust and social media fundraising and giving Tuesday. We will also discuss safe ways to celebrate the upcoming holidays during Covid-19.
Over the last several months, there has been a great deal of momentum to antitrust efforts against Big Tech in the U.S. Those who want to reign in and regulate large technology companies cite several reasons for this, including the lack of competition, privacy issues, misinformation, and lack of access to reliable internet for everybody in our current tech landscape. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights recently prepared for hearings on antitrust enforcement and the Department of Justice started briefing state attorneys general on its proposals to lodge an antitrust lawsuit against Google. An October 2nd article by Bhaskar Chakravorti in the Harvard Business Review cites this move as the most important anti-tech antitrust action since the 1998 case against Microsoft. To help us talk through this issue, we have a special guest joining us. Sam Houle is an AMT Lab contributor this year and joins us to chat about these anti-trust issues in tech. Welcome, Sam!
Sam: Hi.
Angela: Would you like to introduce yourself and give us an update on some of the tech antitrust news you've been seeing these days?
Sam: Absolutely. So, I am a first year MEIM, so I'm in the Heinz Graduate College, in the Entertainment Industry Management program. So I've been doing research through the AMT Lab related to a number of things, but antitrust, especially anti-tech legislation and hearings. One thing—I mean, this isn't actually related to U.S.—antitrust filings, but literally just this morning, if not just a few hours ago, the EU filed antitrust charges against Amazon over their use of data. So we're seeing a kind of general sphere of lawmakers realizing the control a lot of these major companies have over data and this is happening globally in many major countries all the way from India, UK, anywhere in the EU, to domestically as well. So Facebook, Amazon, Google, Alphabet (the parent company of Google), all of these companies are generally taking it over a monopoly on user data because of various reasons, but one of the major reasons, which is that because they've had such a strong hold on attention, especially over the internet and also in terms of, you know, not just consumer attention with, with certain content, but also, especially in terms of Amazon, pricing as well. I mean, generally, if you look on Amazon, it's going to be that much cheaper than if you go anywhere else, because they have the funds to create that form monopoly. And so, that's what this is kind of all centered around: realizing that when these companies have the stronghold, hold the data, they have the ability to set any price, any, any functionality they want over other smaller companies. And so Facebook right now especially is being looked into because, for the longest time, Facebook was the most used social media site, but the major players within Facebook are realizing that, actually, while viewership and subscribership to Facebook is increasing, the actual time spent on the app website is decreasing and so people are shifting away to Instagram. And so that's another issue that's kind of popping up: that because Facebook/Instagram can't be in direct competition with each other without the possibility of legislators kind of coming in and saying, this is a problem. They're trying to figure out ways to claim that they're not being anti-competitive, but a lot of people would agree that they are. And I would personally say that they are as well. And so that's kind of the issue that we're at right now that because we have so few companies that control so much of the world's data, legislators are coming in and saying, this is a problem. Do I think that there's going to be any immediate changes? No, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
B: Yeah, I'm curious. You just mentioned that you don't think there are going to be any immediate changes, but do you have any sort of predictions on how it's going to play out? How long do you think, or would, this sort of change in the landscape or legislation actually take?
Sam: So that, that is one, one problem with this kind of legislation that, because it is so many times dependent on certain instances of violations related to anti-competitiveness or whatever the case may be because these, these companies are so integrated into our lives, even if certain issues may be tackled, the rulings on those cases could take months, if not years. The one thing that I kind of was reading into in this, in the HBR article was that these antitrust hearings may not be the solution. And I can somewhat agree with that because even if there are certain restrictions or limitations put on these companies, because the internet is so integrated into our lives and will continue to be so, especially with the increase in 5G coming along soon and just faster internet speed all worldwide—I mean, it's not going to go in the other direction.
So even if certain limitations, like I said, are put on these companies, no matter what, they're going to be integral to our lives. That's why I'm saying [there are] not going to be any immediate changes. Cause it, it also has to be centered around public perception. If people don't realize day to day, what the impact of using a certain search engine is for instance, in the case of Google, they're going to keep doing it because of the ease of access they have to have the information. And I think that's partly why these new antitrust/anti-tech movements are so fragmented because, while lawmakers may have a better understanding of why this is an issue, individually people go about their lives day-to-day without realizing how interconnected they are to a larger problem. Even myself, I am currently trying to switch away from Google-related products because of how much of a stronghold they have on data. In fact, I've noticed recently that Firefox is actually being funded by a nonprofit, which in comparison to Google, they may not have the same search engine capabilities, but they're trying to provide people a position to move away from the ease-of-access that Google gives and tend to switch over to that. So there are options, but, because, like I said, because a lot of these hearings are going to be based off of certain actions that already occurred and those rulings do not immediately take into effect, anything that happens between now and when those rulings happen could just be another log in the fire.
Basically, that's why anti-tech related issues are so hard to tackle because things just keep spiraling and they keep adding on to what happened before and just kind of keep stacking up the pancakes there. So, I can't say I have any exact predictions, but I will say there are certain things that if they were to go through could definitely impact the landscape we see. If, for instance, Google has to lessen its hold on data in terms of maybe how long it's either held or where it's shared, how it's shared with other companies for the purpose of advertisement, because that's a function of what Google is more than just a search engine company, the way they have their, the way they profit is through advertisement space and providing that to companies. And so when it comes down to it, the data that they share allows for other companies to prosper, especially ones who have the ability to buy up as much advertising space as possible. And so that's where the anti-competitive aspect comes into it. It really depends on where and who they're giving these capabilities towards. And most of the time, in terms of Apple, in terms of a bunch of different companies who use Google search engines, they're the ones who are benefiting directly and all the other smaller companies who you would assume have a chance at competition really do not because of just the sheer amount of data and funding that these companies have.
And so at best, I think we might see a future where smaller search engines—maybe if there are more restrictions put in place in the larger ones like Google—could move forward and actually kind of prosper. I mean, one specifically that I actually enjoy using is called DuckDuckGo. So DuckDuckGo is a search engine. It is very private, so your metadata that is collected is not stored in these mass, you know, server farms. It's really, it has its own extensions as well, like certain browser extensions that allow you to block trackers. It allows you to ensure that, like, certain sites are encrypted. I mean, it's more of a, I would say, it's somewhat more of a hassle than Google, but that's kind of the point, right? That people start to, need to start, realizing that simply just going online and typing in what you want and getting information immediately does not come without a price. Ideally, in the future with the legislation that goes through, people will start to realize that Google might be the answer to all your research papers in college or whatever the case may be, but at the end of the day, it is a behemoth and to break down that behemoth, it can't just be through legislation. It has to be through individual access and use on the internet. And so DuckDuckGo, I think, is a version of a search engine that might be worth looking into if you haven't yet as an internet user.
Angela: It's funny because I remember back when I was, like, 10 years old and first using computers in, like, 2007 and there used to be so many search engines, like, I'm not saying I really miss, like, Ask Jeeves, but there used to be so many options. I used to use Dogpile, and every time I had to write a paper, I'd always like check every search engine before I decided. That just doesn't exist anymore. It's like, why would you use anything but Google, even if it's not really actually the best option, it's just the default.
Sam: It's certainly the most efficient, I mean, that's the problem. And that's what it comes down to: that normal antitrust legislation is not comparable to what we're looking at with Google because of the sheer volume of information that it has tied to it. There's really nothing that can compare to it. That's the issue that we see nowadays that we're probably not going to see an immediate reaction to this because it is just so chic and new in terms of legislation.
Angela: And it's like, Amazon really is the cheapest place to get things. And it's bad. It's a…it's not a good company, but you know, for the user, it's great. Even though it's not for society.
Sam: Exactly.
B: A lot of companies, including a lot of arts and culture organizations use Google AdWords for their own marketing efforts and I'm curious about how any eventual changes in the Google landscape will change how arts organizations are using digital marketing and that also includes, like, on social media. So, you know, how are they approaching their marketing efforts on Facebook and Instagram, given any sort of eventual changes there?
Sam: Yeah. So, I mean, I'm going to be frank, like with many arts and cultural organizations, it's always going to be the uphill battle of working within a system that I think a lot of the art within those organizations attempt to break down at least to a degree, or at least provide some sort of critique on. To have notoriety and notability in this society, I mean, you're going to have to use Google and those larger companies until I think other alternatives come through. I mean, it certainly would be great to use DuckDuckGo or even Firefox search engine and things along those lines. But, because people don't frequent them, you know, it's not going to be that effective of a usage of time or funding towards pay search until those options are viable. And so I don't think that any of the legislation or the hearings that related to what they're going through right now are going to have any direct effect on those organizations yet, but there will be a future where it might need to be more of a diversified portfolio of where these marketing efforts, our digital marketing efforts, are put forth in terms of like, the entertainment industry. Specifically, I mean, I know for a fact that Netflix and other aggregations of content have used, not the sale of personal data from Facebook, but it was like, quote unquote, what they call the second best thing, which is essentially that like Facebook shared certain messages and postings with Netflix for them to realize, like, what content people cared about most. And so if there were to be restrictions put in place through this legislation on certain things like that, then the market data that Netflix uses to determine what they should be putting forth on what they should be funding in terms of content might change and they might have to change their model for that. I mean, I know that a lot of major companies are relying on Facebook status because it's so central to many people's user profiles who use Facebook so often. I personally don't, but then I do use Instagram a lot. So, I mean, all those user profiles translate to consumer profiles for whatever people might want to buy or, like, put attention towards, i.e. Netflix, Hulu, you name it. So that might be something that will change, but in terms of more independent arts and cultural organizations, I can't say I have an exact understanding of what, of how this legislation will change that. But for now, I mean, like I said, I mean, it's going to be a while until I think anything actually happens with these cases, but they certainly will at least, I think put into motion. It may be in the public's perception that it's good to shift away from the behemoths and try to more actively use smaller search engines to prop them up and make people realize that they're just as worthy, and if people start using them, then the data that comes from that use, as long as it's not aggregated under one big umbrella, like through Google, it's going to be usable. It's just not going to be immediate.
B: Right now, it's definitely like more of a personal and individual understanding of the situation and adapting your own internet practices based on that. And perhaps eventually that'll change how organizations approach their digital marketing efforts.
Angela: Do you have any like recommendations for arts organizations or arts managers in terms of keeping up with the news or the use of this technology? And you did kind of talk about that with different search engines and like just you—if we use them, then they’ll be better.
Sam: I'm going to circle back around with the fact that, like, it unfortunately is a very individual thing. I mean, because we become so used to these monopolies, or at least what I would consider monopolies, it's going to be hard to divest from that everyday usage, but that is what I think a lot of this has to come down to. Unfortunately, while certain people within our governments have our best issues at hand, when it comes to privacy and data sharing and usage, for instance, Proposition 24 in California just passed, which allows for people to opt out of data sharing and usage in relation to advertisement use and all of that. But like I said, but again, that's an opt-out version. So there is no legislation right now that says people need to opt in for their data to be used. Right? We have to remind ourselves that a lot of these websites that we use only exist because they have funding through either advertising space or the data that is procured through our usage of those websites is sold to other people to use for their own models for profit. And so until we can kind of shift away from the necessity of advertisement to kind of move our economic system forward, it, I mean, it's extremely central to many companies, not even the major ones, but the ones who just need that type of funding to even just exist on their own. And so it needs to be something that is more talked about in the news, at least for, I think people to kind of realize the gravity of how just one individual search piles on the next one and over and over and over again, to make these, you know, larger user profiles with all the metadata attached to them and things like that. It just, it's not something that can only be done by someone slamming a hammer on the table and saying, this is, you know, “this is ruled,” like it's, it has to be a more integrated approach to how we…how we function as a society.
B: This is rousing. Now I feel, like, shamed for not caring more.
Sam: And that's the thing: bringing those, these things up. I don't want any one individual to feel that way because 99% of the people who use the internet just kind of go about their day, not realizing that, and I'm even a culprit of that myself. Just because I'm keeping up with all this doesn't mean that I'm perfectly doing everything I need to do to ensure that my data is used correctly or stored in the right way. Like, it's not possible for any one person to really do that unless they focus minutes, half-an-hours, hours out of their day thinking about this until they actually get it into their everyday life, into their lifestyle. And that's the problem: you become so naturally attached to all these aspects of the internet, we fail to realize just the larger implications of them. And so that's one thing, at least, you can pull from this is that you should not be waiting for this knight to come in and save everything through the hand of the government. It's not, if the government were to control the way information was shared in every aspect of your lives, that'd be an issue too, right? So every individual person kind of has their own understanding of why these individual searches might be like a problem in the grander scheme of things, because then I think if people start to more naturally realize what they're doing is a problem, then things will start to shift. And I think that the governmental action could put things like that into motion, right? Like, I think that that could be, like, a snowballing effect at some point. But like I said, that's not going to happen tomorrow, anyways. It's going to be probably several years before any of this is actually ruled on.
Angela: I was reading this article in Forbes about how, like basically how Facebook kind of killed privacy or, like, basically the idea that they have had so many data breaches, but after a while, people…we all just kind of stopped caring and we all still use Facebook, even though, even though we know that our data is insecure and it's kind of this question of, like, how do we get people to care again? Because I feel like privacy was such a big thing for so long, but especially with younger generations using things like TikTok, and we all kind of—our lives are so much less private that we don't care that they're not, that we don't have, like, a choice about what's private and what's not.
Sam: I think what ultimately will need to happen is we're going to have to put more emphasis on companies and individuals who have the power to start to wipe data from the internet. And the internet is such, like, a broad concept, but I mean, like, in areas where that data is easily sought after by more malicious companies or organizations, I mean, maybe not like official organizations, but, um, criminal. Even so, and that's the thing—that I think we've had so many data breaches already that for most people, because it seems like to them that their data may already be out there in the ether, they're just going to care less and less and less. And like I said, I've been a culprit in that many times, too, where I think, “Oh, well maybe my social security number was just shared and I didn't even know it, why should I care about my data?” And it's hard too because of course we live our own lives, so thinking about that day after day is very draining—soul-sucking almost.
Angela: Yeah. There's just so many other things to worry about right now.
Sam: Exactly. And that's why it's so easy for these companies to use their monopolistic power to keep functioning, because it for most people is an afterthought and it's understandably so, because I mean, I—as much as I love researching this stuff—if I had a 40-hour-a-week job, at least, 40-plus-hour-a-week job—like, I couldn't imagine putting any second in my life towards it. And that's the issue that we have such, you know, we have so many people who have to live their own lives and not think about it. It just makes it that much easier for these companies to maintain the course they're already on, but it doesn't mean it's impossible to fix. It's just going to be very difficult.
B: Sam. We want to thank you for joining us today and remind our listeners that Sam's research on this topic will be posted on the AMT Lab website in the future. So make sure you keep an eye out for that. And maybe we'll have you back on again to chat more about this in the future.
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Angela: B, do you have any holiday plans?
B: For the last several years, I have spent Thanksgiving with my partner, wherever we have lived. And we just kind of do a Thanksgiving on our own, which is always fun to cook a bunch of food for two people. And then Thanksgiving leftovers, which are just…
Angela: Oh yeah, it's better than the meal.
B: Yeah. The pandemic won't change that particular tradition for me. In terms of December, I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do yet. I'll have to travel to go see my family, but it'll likely look a little different in terms of seeing extended family. I will say we might do a Zoom or two just to connect with people. And I was looking at an article about how friends and family are going to be connecting with each other this holiday season in ways that are different than they typically would, and it listed out a number of apps that people are using to stay connected. That included a number of games and conversation apps that people are using as well as social media. But some of the fun games that I noticed were Words With Friends, which I definitely use with my family. My grandma is a big Words With Friends fan. And so that's something that we do to kind of remain connected, even though we're far apart. A couple of the other ones are Draw Something and Trivia Crack. And one that is not on this list that I have become aware of that a lot of people are playing is called Among Us, which is a multiplayer social deduction game. Basically, players take one of two roles, what they determined to be crewmates and then a predetermined number being imposters. And so it's sort of like the game to try and identify crewmates versus imposters.
Angela: Yeah. I haven't played it, but it's like Mafia, right? Or Werewolves or whatever your version of that is.
B: Yeah.
Angela: Yeah, no, I know that to connect with my college friends who live all over the country and I have one international friend, but we play Settlers of Catan.
B: That’s a great game.
Angela: But there's a website where you can play it online. It's a little glitchy and it's hard to sometimes get into the game. Once the game starts, it's usually totally fine, but it always takes, like, 10 minutes to load and then half the time it doesn't work when you first start and it just takes a long time, but it's always a lot of fun. And I don't know, it's always just an excuse for us all to get together and to chat about our lives. And it's just, it's really nice with a group of friends from college we have an email chain and we just have really long conversations on email, which is, like, it feels old school to me. I don't know. It's just, like, a fun way to connect.
B: Marco Polo is another app that people have used to communicate. You can connect with someone through video with a photo or a text, and you can essentially just like “Marco” them. And they'll, like, “Polo” you back with a video. Unlike something like Snapchat, it does store the content that you're sending back and forth, so it's an easy way to communicate one-on-one with someone in a variety of ways.
Angela: Yeah, I prefer it to Snapchat, certainly. Um, because I don't like that in Snapchat, the videos and photos disappear because I just, I'm the kind of person who likes to reference them again. And so it's nice. You can rewatch them. I also think it's really good for people who are in different time zones, because you can, like, basically have conversations, but you don't need to both be awake at the same time, or like, it doesn't have to be a good time for both of you because you can just send the video. And then later in the day, when it's a normal time for them, they can return it. And I think that's really cool. It's a really cool app actually.
B: I wanted to ask you what your holiday plans are. Do you have any special ways of connecting with your loved ones that you haven't already mentioned?
Angela: Yeah, no. I live at home with my dad and one of my sisters. So we'll probably just, uh, cook food and eat dinner for Thanksgiving at least. My oldest sister lives in Nashville with her husband, so they will probably be there, but we talk all the time and she calls, like, every day. So we will definitely FaceTime or Zoom them in and that'll be really great. Well, another thing that we've done, we have a few friends in the neighborhood that we like to have over and we all sit in our backyard and have outdoor dinner parties kind of, and that's really fun. And we have a couple of different tables, so we're more socially distant, but it's really nice just to be able to at least kind of gather in an outdoor space and have that communal feeling in a way that we don't do that much anymore. And just because we can't travel normally—we visit my mom's family in Indiana, or we go to my dad's family in Annapolis usually for Thanksgiving, especially for Thanksgiving, because they always have the best food, but we can't really do that this year. So it would be nice to at least get some people who are in the area, because nobody can travel, and at least kind of have a little bit of a celebration.
B: Yeah. Some people's holiday traditions kind of revolve around performances that they go to see every year. I know growing up, I pretty much every year would go see the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago's production of The Nutcracker. So that's another different thing that a lot of people might be missing this year is connecting with their loved ones over those sorts of traditions. Some organizations are either offering those holiday performances that they've done, they're streaming them online. I'm seeing that the Trans-Siberian orchestra is doing a virtual show in 2020.
Angela: That's cool.
B: So it looks like they're doing a holiday performance that's being delivered virtually on December 18th. They are charging tickets for it. If that's how people are trying to feel connected with their loved ones and try and keep the holiday spirit up, there are definitely options out there.
Angela: That is one of the things about the pandemic that hopefully will continue once there's not, you know, a virus going around: this idea of accessibility to lots of different performances. Like I never had the opportunity to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, but I think they're really cool. I'd love to, and I think that's great that I could just stream a concert of them. And a lot of times that wouldn't be possible, but because of the pandemic, because nobody can see them live, they're making more ways for people all over the world to be able to see them. And that's really cool.
B: Yeah.
Angela: Make some new traditions.
B: New traditions. Good point.
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Angela: Since the beginning of the pandemic, there's been so much fundraising going on. Everyone's trying to give, whether, because of a need-based, because of the pandemic, because of protesting and the racial reckoning happening in our country, and everyone wants to support black owned businesses and local businesses. There was an article in the New York Times about how giving was up 28% from last year. This was in June, but donors have given $3.4 billion nationwide and grants for food banks and other assistance programs were up 667% nationally. At the same time, donors continue to give to their local and other regular charities. This is a report from Fidelity Charitable, "at the same time, donors continued to give to their local and other regular charities, according to the report, which tallied 750,000 transactions to more than a hundred thousand charities". So basically people are giving a ton. That was in June. Obviously, people have been giving like since then,
B: And a huge variety in channels are also being used more. A lot of digital fundraising on social media, especially sparked by activism and people seeing campaigns that their friends are a part of or trying to share with their social networks. You're seeing a lot on GoFundMe and sometimes Kickstarter. So there's been a lot of crowd funding for efforts that aren't necessarily registered 501c3 or non-profit organizations. And so there's just a lot of generosity out in the world right now, stemming from our circumstances.
Angela: It's really encouraging, I think, people are coming together in this time. Especially when politically it feels like people are not coming together, as we've seen in this last election. We're just all so polarized right now. It's nice to see that in some ways we are all still coming together in times of need.
B: CCS, which is a fundraising consulting firm has been putting out these philanthropic climate survey reports and in their most recent one, which is the third edition from early September, they reported that virtual methods of philanthropy are standing out as having disproportionately high increases. So the proportion of organizations who responded to their climate survey reported that virtual briefings as their primary, like engagement in cultivation method had jumped up seven percentage points from June to September. And we're also seeing a lot more virtual events, tours, and other activities, which is not surprising. We've been seeing this since everyone had to shift to digital with fewer live performances, given the pandemic. Between June and September organizations who responded to the survey also reported that there was a 13% increase percentage points who had held an online fundraising event. So we're seeing more who are also shifting their galas just driven by the circumstances.
Angela: Yeah, definitely. I feel like it's also so much easier these days to give, like Facebook has causes for your birthday. Here's a charity. You should support me. That can be your gift to me.
B: Yeah. They have like a whole like search feature that you can use that allows you to look up a cause you care about or something you're interested in and it'll basically just allow you to, to start your own little campaign for them.
Angela: Which makes it so easy to just post a charity that you feel passionate about. Even YouTube, so many different YouTube channels, just have fundraising right next to them. And if you like a YouTuber, it's so easy to just be like, Oh, they support this. I'll support that too. And it's just natural. You don't even have to think about it.
B: Looking forward, in the next few weeks, there is a significant date. Many organizations are probably familiar with Giving Tuesday, which is a social media movement, which was founded in 2012. It was actually founded by the 92nd street Y and the United Nations Foundation. It defines itself as a global day dedicated to giving back. It always follows Black Friday and Cyber Monday and promotes charitable giving at the start of the holiday season. This year, it's Tuesday, December 1st, 2020. Shortly after it was founded, Giving Tuesday gained sort of this mass awareness and participation through social media and networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The event is really embedded in the social media landscape and the Twitter hashtag is actually part of Giving Tuesday’s official name. In 2019, Giving Tuesday raised, in the United States through online donations, they raised a $511 million. And if you also include offline donations in the United States in 2019, they raised $1 billion 970 million. So it looks like a lot of their donations they have coming in for the campaign are offline. It seems like organizations are really using the #GivingTuesday name to try and increase support. I'll be interested to see if 2020 skews more online given just increase in digital engagement this year. Many people might know that Giving Tuesday actually had a “Giving Tuesday Now” day in May, given the pandemic. In May, they were able to raise over $503 million in online donations in the U S by just really trying to rally their efforts in order to fundraise for organizations, and they monitored platform donation, social media conversations, and other activities leading up to that particular day in May to try and support organizations that had seen financial strife due to the pandemic. Their website, givingtuesday.org has a toolkit. Their toolkit provides organizations with social media, graphics and logos, so that when an organization is trying to raise funds on Giving Tuesday, they can use the official sort of Giving Tuesday brand. They also have a Canva templates so that your organization can try and create your own poster or marketing materials. They have also created like a guide for nonprofits for each year. So the guide explains key messages around Giving Tuesday and what it is, what it can provide, tips on language to use and information to share. So some tips to organizations are to be sharing good news stories on the particular day, to collaborate with other organizations to host drives or help elevate the campaign, to be thanking your supporters on this particular day, to promote this idea of like 24 hours of gratitude to amplify other people's stories, to go live on social media to thank your supporters and try and ramp up support. And then all of this sort of activity will hopefully help increase fundraising efforts for your organization. Their guide for this year includes a section on donor fatigue. A lot of donors are very motivated to give to a number of causes. And the relationship the organization should have with their supporters should be more like experiential than transactional because donors have been giving so much this year. To be thinking more about the quality of your interactions with potential donors than necessarily the quantity, trying to provide your supporters an opportunity to give in a way that is engaging and motivating to them
Angela: Also because Giving Tuesday comes the day after Cyber Monday. So you would think they would hop on that bandwagon and like, have Giving Tuesday online campaigns during Cyber Monday when they know that there's this one day when tons of people are going to be online, shopping and spending money and like specifically doing that online.
B: Giving Tuesday does actually recommend that organizations start building hype for Giving Tuesday before the day itself. So there could be an opportunity for, for organizations to try and cultivate excitement on their platforms on Cyber Monday, given all of the traffic. So they do recommend that people post and send out messages of like a "one day to go" until the actual day so that their community knows they're kind of in the final countdown to the day itself, which is Tuesday, December 1st.
Angela: I did want to say that, like the day that was chosen for Giving Tuesday, which was only established in 2012 but it was very purposefully around the Thanksgiving, Christmas time, according to an article in the Atlantic, 25% of all donations received annually are given in that five week period between Thanksgiving and New Year's. For 16% of organizations, giving in the final months of the year account for half of the contributions that they receive. So Giving Tuesday is a big deal. That's like when charities and nonprofits like get a significant amount of their donations.
B: Having a day like Giving Tuesday helps sort of consolidate your efforts from an organizational perspective. You know, if you're expecting all of these donations to be coming in in the last couple months of the year, your time is better spent trying to build excitement and motivate people to do it in this one day. And with the Giving Tuesday brand, hopefully motivate some of your donors to try and use their networks to bring in donations as well as supposed to reaching out to every individual donor. And it being a, will they won't they situation, will they remember to give this year. This, at least from the donor's perspective, you have a day on your calendar every year that perhaps, you know, this is my day that I give to these causes that I care about. And then I share it on, on social media and maybe some of my friends will give too.
Angela: That does make a difference. Just having a day. People like reminders and celebrations. And especially this year, when it feels like we're all like unstuck from time, it feels good to have like a day to mark it and say, this is the day when we're going to think of other people.
B: I was also reading about a report that Allison Fine and Beth Kanter put out in August called "Unlocking Generosity with Artificial Intelligence: The Future of Giving" in which they culminated their research from the last couple years on using artificial intelligence in fundraising. And they identified a number of benefits for the use of AI and in nonprofit fundraising, a lot of it around identifying connections and helping facilitate those connections between what they determined to be everyday givers, which were those who are giving less than $500 a year. So making those connections between those everyday givers and causes that they might care about sort of matching people with their interests and helping to match nonprofits with those who might be potentially interested in them. They also identified that it could help with scaling sort of personalized communications for all donors and making the process of communicating more efficient and effective helping organizations and fundraisers better understand their donors, interests and giving patterns and motivations and sort of helping to automate the internal reporting and other administrative tasks around fundraising. So they talked in their report a little bit how, given that since the pandemic really took hold in the United States, we've had to adapt how humans are, are working and that this is kind of a time that more AI technology will emerge in terms of how we're getting things done and that includes in, in fundraising. So it's worth mentioning that they identified some risks or challenges in using AI in fundraising as well. So they pointed out that you can't necessarily see AI at work and so if you're integrating this sort of technology in your fundraising strategy, it creates a situation where there isn't necessarily someone who knows, sort of, what's going on in the portfolio. So things could fall through the cracks, if it's a robot, as opposed to a person, you might not know the nuance of your giving portfolio. A lot of that intelligence lies in giving officers and development managers. They know the intricacies of what there are people in their portfolios do and don't like, and when you have artificial intelligence sort of managing that, there's definitely room for things to fall through the cracks, but they also point out you need so much more capacity for data and the ability to store and analyze it. So definitely the arts have a ways to go in terms of figuring out how to use this technology, but it's something interesting to think about, especially as from the pandemic, we're sort of shifting to more efficient ways of working and living.
Angela: I think it's really interesting advancements in technology that almost use algorithms to help make things more personal. That feels backwards, that it's happening. And it kind of does work. Although obviously you can't totally get rid of that human element and you wouldn't want to because that's, you know, that's really important and people need jobs and also it just, it helps make things better. Humans make things better.
B: But yeah, we'll have to keep an eye on it. And, yeah, I'm interested in seeing where that goes.
Angela: Thanks for listening to the AMT Lab podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment. If you would like to learn more, go to amt-lab.org that is AMT dash L a b.org. Or you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @TechInTheArts or on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn at Arts Management and Technology Lab. You can find the resources that we referenced today in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
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