Behavioral Science Posts

How to Have More Winning Tests?

Stop designing tests assuming everyone’s the same. 99.9% of tests are of this variety, the random nth, A/B test. Hidden in many “losing” test results is a test idea that worked for some people and not others. Here are results of an experiment with donations going to World Vision and prospective donors randomly split into […]

Learn More June 18, 2021

The Corvallis Effect and Donor Fatigue

A mysterious student has been attending class at Oregon State University for the past two months enveloped in a big, black bag. Only his bare feet show. Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11am the Black Bag sits on a small table near the back of the classroom. The class is Speech 113 – basic […]

Learn More June 9, 2021

A “Winning”Test

Would you consider sending the same ask to the same person in the same time period but through two different channels? This technique is sometimes employed with emails that match the direct mail message and are timed to coincide with arrival in the physical mailbox. We tested the same notion but with a request for […]

Learn More June 4, 2021

Personality and The Words You Use

The University of Cambridge has a demo app predicting your personality on the Big Five based on word usage vis-a-vis your social media accounts. It’s quite accurate on seemingly very little data – I only linked to my infrequently used and only in a professional capacity, Twitter account. You’d think that’d be a biased sample […]

Learn More June 2, 2021

REMINDER: FREE SUMMER SERIES

It ain’t Sheakspeare in the Park, or the Tamglewood Music Festival, nor one of the Edinburgh Festivals, but it’s custom made for fundraisers open to re-thinking and re-imagining how to best approach post-pandemic challenges. This Free Summer Series is brought to you by DonorVoice, the Behavioral Science Fundraising Agency and you can register here In these short, […]

Learn More June 1, 2021

The Case for Netflix-ing Your Fundraising

Netflix’s ‘Play Something” feature is a roulette wheel selecting among algorithmically personalized shows the service thinks you might like. Why did Netflix develop it? Because their subscribers often experience a certain amount of anxiety and mental pain from choosing among the seemingly endless and growing choices. This is a user experience problem that translates to […]

Learn More May 26, 2021

Science of the Supporter Experience Summer Series

This Free Summer Series is brought to you by DonorVoice, the Behavioral Science Fundraising Agency, register here. Are you ready to come out of lockdown? Not personally (who isn’t?), but professionally? Will your pre-pandemic plan do, or could you benefit from a re-think? If you’re open to re-thinking and re-imagining your fundraising you’ll want to […]

Learn More May 24, 2021

Easier is Better

Easy things make brains happy. Happy brains do the things we ask them to (like donate). The easier something is, the more it convinces. Simple stocks go up more; simple named people become president. We often forget this. So here’s a simple post about keeping it simple. (The hard data are in links.) Image credit: Boston […]

Learn More May 17, 2021

Give Your Supporters a Break

Breaks are necessary for our sanity and productivity. Not exactly a breakthrough statement. Yet, we rarely follow that advice. How many back-to-back calls did you have this week? Can you remember how you felt after the last one? In a recent study, Microsoft examined the effects of back-to-back video calls on stress, and engagement. They […]

Learn More April 30, 2021

The Failed World of One Size Fits All “Nudges”

I don’t know how many times I’ve typed, spoken, yelled or cried in my beer (ok, whiskey..) that we have to get fundraising out of it’s one size fits all world. Actually, I do know because I’ve just counted and its 3,247 times. I’m clearly doing it wrong. But, hope springs eternal and so, here […]

Learn More April 23, 2021

Ask A Behavioral Scientist

Behavioral Science Q & A

Q: Do you have any insight on whether integrating an individual giving appeal with other comms from the charity in both appearance and messaging can uplift results? Or does the actual appeal become ‘lost’ for lack of stand-out?

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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Q: Is there any research on response rate impact in direct mail when referring to a sustainer gift as ongoing or recurring (catching all frequencies) v. monthly or annual?

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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Q: A major conservation nonprofit sends me lots of mail, many of which have on the envelope “time to renew” or “2nd notice.” I find this practice deceptive, especially as I haven’t given to said organization since 1997. It must be effective or they wouldn’t do it. But is it ethical?

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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Q: I find it irritating when some nonprofits accept my “gift” and then ask me to cover their credit card fees separately. It feels like a practice that does nothing to help win donors and runs the risk of turning others off. Is there any data on this either way?

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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Q: What are the three most important things to consider when designing a brilliant supporter journey?

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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Q: Is there any evidence that changes to the tax laws in the USA changed end of year giving behaviors? Previously, ~30% of US taxpayers filed itemized tax returns allowing them to receive a deduction for charitable giving. Tax law changed in 2017 so that now only ~10% itemize. This should mean tax year-end giving should not matter to millions of people for whom it used to matter. Is there any data evidence to support this?

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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