Losing Donors In The Sea of Sameness
When will some fundraisers wake up to the fact that the tragedy of donor flight is largely self-inflicted.
Other than the 16% of donors lost to death virtually every other reason for not giving — abandoning support of an organization — is influenced and controlled by the actions the organization itself takes.
Perhaps nowhere are the sloppy, copycat practices of some fundraisers more pronounced that on #GivingTuesday.
Tom and I have begun to add to our ball of string containing comments and critiques on #GivingTuesday 2016. We’ve already collected a bunch and urge you to keep ‘em coming. Either post ‘em on the comments section of The Agitator or send yours to us at editors@theagitator.net.
What was obvious within minutes after this year’s #GivingTuesday got underway is that this questionable event is floating in a Sea of Sameness.
In a secret shopper exercise Nick Ellinger over at DonorVoice put himself on the email lists of 100 top U.S. charities. His bittersweet, day-after report Giving Tuesday and the when versus why of giving is well worth reading — and sharing .
First, what struck me in his findings was what Nick calls the “Men’s Warehouse Effect” — two or three suits for the price of one — in the overuse of Matching Gifts for #Giving Tuesday.
Why would a customer ever buy one suit instead of waiting for the 2-for-1 offer? And why would a donor make a single gift when they could simply wait for one of these breathless 2-for-1, 3-for-1 or even 5-for-1 matching gift offers?
Next, in reviewing the 32 #GivingTuesday subject lines Nick collected, I was struck by the Sea of Sameness effect (Nick termed them “snoringly generic”) added on top of the Men’s Warehouse effect. Double bad.
Take a look at the subject lines that graced Nick’s inbox and draw your own conclusion.
Not only does #GivingTuesday bring out the mediocrity and lack of understanding of why donors give, it magnifies and encourages herd behavior of the worst kind.
We’ve warned over and over about the dangers of copycat practices — see The Land of Lost Donors and the Sea of Sameness — including the overuse of matching gift offers.
How many donors must we lose before we learn?
Roger
12 responses to “Losing Donors In The Sea of Sameness”
Behavioral Science Q & A
Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]
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I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]
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Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]
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Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
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There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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It’s because “it works” …
http://blogs.plymouth.ac.uk/criticalfundraising/2016/05/25/opinion-share-and-share-alike-until-were-all-doing-exactly-the-same-thing/
Agree with Joe that sameness is not the problem if it works. Urgency and challenges work! And most folks don’t give to 100 charities. They’re compelled by a good offer. The problem I’m seeing is just dreadful copywriting. I got two or more mail appeals daily this week, and they all made my eyes roll to the back of my head. Boring. Formal. We-centered. Data, not stories. Asks buried. Poor use of the P.S. Sadly, I believe many of these folks were copycats. They were just copying inferior practices — a much graver sin than copying best practices (IMHO).
My wish for today is that every Agitator would read, in its entirety, Joe Jenkins opinion post (link above). Full disclosure: I’ve never met Joe. I have zero affiliation to Plymouth. But when stuff is good, it’s good.
Especially this: (direct quote from Joe’s article)
“…By openly sharing our case studies and ideas we make it far easier to feed the endless cycle of mass replication. But I don’t therefore conclude we should stop sharing – more that we need to learn differently. The lesson from a case study at conference or in a magazine article should not be ‘how do I import that technique, channel, tactic, product into my plans/portfolio’; instead, we should reflect more on what insights we can draw upon to inform the creation of something that looks and feels fundamentally different when executed by our own charity. When sharing our results, it would help if we presented in this way too.”
Every nonprofit has a USP (Unique Special Product), whether it’s culture or history or staff or service offering or beneficiaries or all of the above. As fundraisers, as sector professionals and volunteers, it’s our job to find that USP and bring it to life in a way that is authentic and distinctive. This doesn’t mean abandoning your reply slip and all of your matching offers ad infinitum and setting fire to your heartwarming copy: as Claire said, some best practices are duplicated because they work. But it does mean taking your communications off autopilot. It does mean questioning boilerplate creative. It does mean training your powers-that-be about how not to shackle innovative fundraising based on sound principles (Read Ed Catmull’s “Creativity, Inc”).
To paraphrase @MrJoeJenkins, the world doesn’t need a million identical Ice Bucket Challenges or Konys. The world needs what you, and you alone, bring to the table. And it’s not gonna pay attention to you just because it’s Giving Tuesday.
Hooray! I looked for the “Love” button but didn’t see it, Lisa.
Swipe files are meant as inspiration, not to be copied.
In addition to every nonprofit having their own USP, every nonprofit has their own unique donor base. The more you get to know your donors on a truly personal level – learning what resonates with them – the better you speak to them in your communications.
If success is boiled down to a set of generic whatever’s (copy points, always do X, but not Y) then the sector will forever swim in a sea of sameness because what gets copied is a) generic and b) easy to copy.
All the acquisition examples Joe raised are case in point – tactical, generic things that anybody can replicate and everybody does and basic economics and capitalism take hold; if there is a profit margin in industry X that does Y then all the players in that industry will jump in doing Y and the margin will go to zero. This is unavoidable.
If the answer to what charities should do to get out of the sea of sameness doesn’t include uniquely and specifically understanding why donors support them (which will never be learned torturing behavior data) then it is just rearranging chairs on the Titanic.
Getting at root cause, the why of behavior (and yes, there are some global drivers here from the world of social sciences) that is specific to your cause is the only way to actually grow and the only way to avoid easy copy-catting that further perpetuates the tragedy of the commons problem that Joe cites.
This is not a creative exercise, this is an archaeology one; unearthing the why. Any counsel that doesn’t include very specific answers on the why of behavior that is specific to the charity is simply feeding into the sea of sameness. And any counsel that doesn’t go beyond copy suggestions is not strategic, merely short-term and tactical.
Here’s a blog article that I wrote about my issues with Giving Tuesday.
http://generousmatters.com/blog/2016/12/01/giving-isnt-just-for-tuesday/
Glad to have it added to the “ball of string.”
I dunno Roger. I disagree with some of the conversation here.
Some of these comments seem to be from people who think it’s a bad idea for candy companies to celebrate Halloween or for charcoal companies not to remind people at Labor Day or 4th of July.
Nick’s critique of emphasizing the match more than the mission is a good reminder, but surely smart fundraisers reading this post know that tying in seasonal messaging helps connect with potential donors.
Tying in with seasonal messaging, yes. Matching offers and deadlines that make sense, yes. Agree 100% with Steve on those points: the offer is key.
The idea that a promotional offer during a “holiday” is a way to “connect” with donors needs some evidence behind it. Can you throw out a gimmick that everyone else uses and get sales? Sure. That can be done on any day, the contrarian bent might be to pull an REI and make a virtue of not doing what everyone else does but that is just speculation.
The larger question is whether the Giving Tuesday money (or any offer for that matter) is new money or simply money shifted forward? The strong evidence is the latter (60% as rule of thumb is merely cannibalizing future sales) so we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that this is all incremental gravy on top of the day-old turkey.
And what about the irritation effect? The unmeasured consequence (except many months later in some sterile, largely useless ‘audit’ report showing retention) of getting repeated emails over and over and over. Not just from one charity but most of them with the same banal teaser?
Does anyone among us think that is free? That there is no cost? Again, well evidenced and proven that it ain’t free. In fact it costs us much more than the incremental (mostly robbed from the future) gain.
But hey, if short-term wins the day then you swim in the sea of sameness.
Here’s an important fact for our “Sea of Sameness/#GivingTuesday” discussion. I checked with Nick Ellinger, who conducted the mystery shopping /monitoring of #GivingTuesday emails from 100 organizations, and asked how many groups used a seasonal or holiday theme.
81% of the organizations’ #GivingTuesday emails contained NO holiday or seasonal theme. Just plain #GivingTuesday. Sad.
Roger, my point was that #givingtuesday IS the season or holiday. It’s a new holiday. My argument is that it has created a new opportunity to connect, with donors and remind them to pause and be generous.
Kevin, I don’t think Sweetest Day is a gimmick. (For those that didn’t grow up in the Midwest, it’s kind of like Valentine’s Day, but celebrated in October. What about Single’s Day in China??
I think some of the critiques of Giving Tuesday are being done by those who like to have a contrarian view. The simple fact is that Fundraisers
Roger, my point was that #givingtuesday IS the season or holiday. It’s a new holiday. My argument is that it has created a new opportunity to connect, with donors and remind them to pause and be generous.
Kevin, I don’t think Sweetest Day is a gimmick. (For those that didn’t grow up in the Midwest, it’s kind of like Valentine’s Day, but celebrated in October. What about Single’s Day in China??
I think some of the critiques of Giving Tuesday are being done by those who like to have a contrarian view. The simple fact is that good fundraisers, the types who respect their donors, cultivate their passion for the mission, and work hard to raise money for important nonprofits benefit from any cultural movement that puts added attention on the importance of giving. Period.
I challenge critics to find this same kind of circular firing squad for campaigns like Small Business Saturday.