Q: My nonprofit is embarked on a very intentional race equity journey that is transforming how we look at, and do, our work. Translating this to our fundraising operations has been a challenge, in part because best practices in fundraising earn that distinction because they’ve been optimized by a white-dominated profession for white donors. How can behavioral science help transform tried-and-true fundraising concepts so we become more competent at engaging communities of color?
You are right. Different cultures might be subject to biases to different degrees. For example, there’s some evidence that loss aversion bias – losses loom larger than gains – is a universal phenomenon but it presents substantial cross-cultural differences. More specifically, individualistic cultures e.g. western world are more prone to loss aversion compared to more collectivistic cultures e.g. east Asia. Please note that the effect was still present; it was just less strong. The same could be true for other biases.
But your fundraising practices might not be totally different; they just might be more or less effective. All this means is you need to test any interesting insight you hear about. This is actually no different to what any other organisation should do. Even if the research findings or fundraising practices are based on population of the same culture, there are still other factors that could affect their effectiveness e.g. the person’s connection to the cause, wealth, age etc… So you, just like any other organisation, should test specific fundraising or behavioral interventions with your audience using your material and tone of voice to find what works best for you.
As a side note, you might find that some of the so-called best practices have never actually been tested in a robust way, even using a white audience. Unfortunately, they may have just been based on anecdotal evidence or hunches. So my recommendation to test goes for all practices and all organizations.
Behavioral Science Q & A
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