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When you start a new fundraising goal, the last thing on your mind is cybersecurity.
Why would someone want to steal from a charity, right?
Sadly, in the world of cybercrime, there are always threat actors willing to attack fundraisers to steal donations and private data.
In 2024, strong cybersecurity lays the foundation for a successful fundraising campaign.
So let’s talk about 8 actionable ways to secure your campaign, and why cybersecurity matters in the fundraising industry.
In our modern era, poor cybersecurity culture is ground zero for most data breaches on fundraising campaigns. In 2023, Verizon concluded that 74% of data breaches involved human error.
In the fundraising world, basic cybersecurity training is often neglected. If made a core part of onboarding staff members, you encourage a healthy discourse on safe data practices.
While it should be part of your mandatory cybersecurity training, email security deserves extra attention. Especially in hybrid workplaces, where burnout is common, email security is where employees and Campaign Managers make mistakes.
Researchers at Tessian reported that a quarter of employees clicked on a phishing email at work in the last 12 months. Your donors should also be warned and trained on how to avoid phishing scams.
Work devices are a common cause of data leaks during fundraising campaigns. Whether you’re in the office or working on the go, WiFi connections can be rife with cyber threats.
Antivirus, password managers, and firewalls;
Network encryption via premium VPN service providers;
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA);
Secure cloud backup software.
Cybersecurity is important for your campaign, but perhaps even more so for your donors. These amazing contributors believe in your cause and only want to help. Protecting their private data is paramount.
By using a secure fundraising platform with a good security record, you safeguard your campaign and your donors. This is also crucial to maintaining a professional reputation in the fundraising industry.
The platform you choose to host your fundraiser on must offer a secure payment gateway for your donors. Payment processing platforms like Stripe accept most forms of payment while guaranteeing security.
Secure payment gateways comply with industry regulations and add credibility to your campaign. The user experience of these platforms also makes payment simple and quick. Some even offer 24/7 customer support.
Across the corporate business sphere, one security framework is gaining traction unlike any other. Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) is a security design that upholds zero-trust principles. While not typical in the fundraising space, the same benefits can be utilized.
Tight access controls: Users only have access to the data they need to do their job and no more.
Authentication protocols: MFA is required by all personnel to ensure no access is allowed to unauthorized users.
Segmentation: Data is separated into distinct “islands”. This minimizes the possible damage in a breach.
As your campaign grows, performing security audits can help you monitor your current state of security. System, network, and database monitoring tools give you a constant overview of activities throughout your digital campaign.
By keeping comprehensive logs of all activities, you can review past logs for malicious behavior. This way, regular audits help you to mitigate cyber threats before they can get a foothold.
Unfortunately, when dealing with donations from around the globe, a cyber attack may be unavoidable. In this worst-case scenario, you’d have your fingers crossed that you wrote an Incident Response Plan (IRP).
Five crucial components of an effective IRP are:
Whether you’re dealing with wealthy benefactors or just small-scale donations, cyber crime can be indiscriminate and seemingly random.
Your cause is important — protect it!
Safeguard your fundraising campaign today and mitigate an attack before it happens.
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