I’m a dog person and a coffee lover. But being a coffee lover isn’t one of the most important ways I define myself, being a dog person is much more so.

This simplistic example illustrates the difference between identity presence, whether one has a certain identity, and identity importance, how central the identity is to one’s  sense of self. Our many identities aren’t equally important towards our sense of self, especially in a given context.

Having an identity doesn’t necessarily mean I consider it to be a central part of who I am.

Identity presence determines if one has a certain identity or not.

Identity importance determines how central an identity is for a person.

Why is this relevant to fundraising? If identity is the innate reason someone gives to a specific cause, then the higher its importance and centrality, the more it will affect giving.

But there isn’t just one identity that could explain giving, not even to the same cause. For example, people might sponsor a child because they are parents, or because they a place-based connection to where the sponsored child lives. Each of these natural, innate identities is part of a person’s makeup and relates to the broader cause. More importantly, the values and goals attached to these innate identities can be expressed without ever giving to a charity – e.g. a parent volunteering at the school.

On the other hand, once someone makes a gift to an organization, they immediately acquire the “donor” identity. This is wholly defined by the person’s relationship with the charity and it doesn’t exist outside of the charitable act.

Donor identity – i.e. an organization identity – relates to the act of giving while innate or “natural” identity relates to the person and the broader cause.

Further, donor/organization identity is 100% generic. It describes (not explains) the act of someone giving to anyone.

Innate or Natural Identity explains why Donor A supports Charity A differently from Charity B.

Considering the above in the context of fundraising, two questions come to mind:

• 1. What explains giving better; an organization identity (e.g. donor, supporter, volunteer, advocate), or an innate, natural identity that relates to the cause?
  2. Could identity centrality be as, or more important,  than identity presence in driving giving?

In an online study, we recruited people who made a donation to an environmental charity in the last year. That immediately qualifies them as “donors”. We then measured how central this donor identity is for them (donor importance).

Two possible, innate and natural identities that could explain giving to this cause are environmentalist and conservationist. So, we measured the extent to which they identified with each (presence of Identity) and how important each of these were to their sense of self (conservationist centrality and environmentalist centrality).

Finally, we asked them how likely it is they’ll make another gift to the same charity.

What did we find?

• • Not all innate, natural identities are equal. In this case, conservationist identity was more effective in predicting giving than environmentalist. Even though both identities relate to the same cause, one matters much more for fundraising. As a fundraiser, your goal is to find the supporter identity that matters most in driving giving to your organization. 

• • Natural, innate identity wins over generic, org-centric, donor identity. The organization specific, “donor” identity was less effective in predicting giving than the conservationist identity. “Donor” identity might be easier to use but digging deeper and discovering the relevant, innate identity will yield better results.

It’s a tragic, defining downward of ‘donor-centrism’ to be satisfied with inward-looking, generic, org-centric labels (e.g. supporter, donor, regular giver, sustainer).  It’s also more than a bit ironic when folks argue they’re being donor centric by using an organization-centric (and non-unique) label.  “Donor-centric” is just a term, not the literal answer.

• • Identity salience matters a ton and it matters more than identity presence. Conservationist importance was better at predicting giving than conservationist identity presence. What does this mean? Merely identifying as conservationist (presence of Identity) isn’t enough. Only people who consider being a conservationist an important part of who they are give more. The implication is we shouldn’t capture whether a donor merely has a natural identity but whether that identity is central to them. This requires a more refined, two-item measure.

Dig deeper.  Don’t be satisfied with lowest common denominator thinking about the people who support your organization.

Nobody’s real “why” for giving is “because I’m a donor”.   So why let the act (donating, volunteering, advocating) not the motivation be as far as we go in understanding human behavior?

Kevin