... as experienced via Twitter and curated using Storify:

[View the story "Third Sector Digital Fundraising Conference, 11 May 2011" on Storify] I was due to present at this event yesterday but the brilliant Ashley Clarke from team beautiful world was kind enough to take my place to present on, 'Tracking The Success Of Your Digital Fundraising Campaigns', because I'm nine months' pregnant and counting...

From the Twitterfeed, it sounded like a great conference, with an excellent range of presentations, full of useful insights. It was nice to see so many people who have previously presented at NFPtweetup on the bill, too, and there was some interesting debate on Twitter.

The conference kicked off with one of the speakers - the Chair, I think - making this statement, as reported by @JosephFreeman:

The jury's still out on whether we can make money through digital

This prompted a flurry of comments on Twitter, including this one from JustGiving's @jon_bedford:

I had a similar reaction, initially.  However, whilst there is plenty of evidence that charities can fundraise online - including the £770 million raised through JustGiving since its launch 11 years' ago - I agree with the Chair in the respect that, for the majority of charities, digital fundraising is still perceived as risky, compared to more tried and tested channels, and is still entirely beyond the experience of many.  Across the sector, the jury is still out.

I don't know what more it's worth saying about this now, since I've blogged about it so extensively already, except that there are plenty of charities that have proven that digital fundraising works - and even that social media fundraising works, despite the fact that many people say it doesn't. I'm hoping that we see more case studies shared at the IoF National Convention, and other sector events, that will give those that haven't tested digital yet the confidence to do so, because it's vital for charities' future security to grasp digital and make it work for them.

[If more of the presentations from yesterday's conference are shared online, I'll add them later.]