Afraid Of Urgent? Try Authentic.
Jeff Brooks at Future Fundraising Now wrote an interesting post last week about second-guessing donors.
He was warning fundraisers not to make up stories about donors … what he referred to as “wild guesses about their behaviors that wander far away from what donors really do”.
And he gave the example of worrying about how donors might react to a carrier with a big red URGENT stamped on the outside — would donors be more motivated to give, or dismiss the claim as silly gimmickry?
The reality is that the tactic would probably produce one response from some donors and the opposite from others. Jeff advises: “…stay with known facts about donor behavior, and avoid made-up stories about what they think and feel.”
To get at actual behaviour, you might test — URGENT vs non-URGENT carriers.
The test would be useful — perhaps URGENT would indeed to found to deliver stronger response and higher gifts. In that instance.
You’d be emboldened to try the tactic again the next time.
But before getting too carried away, I’d interject a dose of caution … consider the authenticity of each claim of urgency. Because pure gimmickry will erode donor trust.
Which brings me back to Jeff’s admonition NOT to try to intuit how your donors might think and feel about some fundraising approach.
I understand the warning he’s giving, but I can’t accept that experienced fundraisers should not be able — or expected — to put themselves in their donors’ shoes … give their URGENT claim the sniff test … and abandon it if they sense that authenticity is lacking.
How about you? Would you be more inclined to err on the side of your intuition warning you away from making an URGENCY claim (in the interest of not risking donor trust), or would prefer to chase a hoped-for lift in response, accepting that in the process you might have alienated some fraction of your donors?
Or, following what I take as Jeff’s advice, would you rather just not worry about it? And let the results speak for themselves.
Tom
2 responses to “Afraid Of Urgent? Try Authentic.”
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I get itchy at the thought of being disingenuous. Fake urgency? Usually when I’m tempted, it’s because I haven’t made a good enough case – or I don’t understand the need well enough.
Is it true that you need the money? Why? Could it wait 3 months? Then find another reason for giving to offer your donors.
I know from email testing that urgency works when there is a real deadline. While we don’t say “Urgent” if there isn’t a genuine deadline, we may say something like Act Now or Donate Now but if there is not a good reason to do so right then, it doesn’t work as well. You’re better off in those cases to be compelling, intriguing or finding some other part of your message to motivate donors to give.