Innovation - Agitator

Behavioral Science Posts

Are Your New Donors Hiding in Plain Sight?

We’ve talked about ways to bring people in from the outside like advocacy programs and content marketing efforts. But while both are good ways to get people on your file, they may not always convert to donors. So what if it turns out that, like the Scarecrow’s brains and the True Meaning of Christmas*, the […]

Learn More March 29, 2018

YourMediaCompany.org

There are many real issues and perceived issues concerning the state of media. This is not that thought piece. This is the one proclaiming that this is the perfect time for your organization to become its own media organization; for several reasons. The costs of operating a media organization have never been lower. You could […]

Learn More March 28, 2018

WANTED: Fundraisers With Merger, Acquisition and Investment Banking Experience

New thinking and new approaches are fundamental necessities for survival and growth. Not because all “old” ways are bad. Not all are. And surely not because the next, shiny new thing is likely to be better. It’s not. In a sector desperate for growth new solutions and approaches to financing must be explored. Incremental change […]

Learn More March 26, 2018

Taming Facebook with Identity

Facebook gave us the first hit free: get your constituents to like your page and you’ll be able to talk with them on their platform free. What they meant was “get your constituents to append their own interest data to Facebook’s copious data stores and Facebook will sell it to others.” It doesn’t matter anymore: […]

Learn More March 23, 2018

Low Risk Approach to High Reward Discovery

Yesterday Roger outlined the failings of alleged-segmentation systems that aren’t customized to your organization. Today, I’d like to suggest a proven, low-risk approach to dramatic improvement through better segmentation. It’s hard to get away from the significant advantages that come with being a mature nonprofit brand: you can get very good at delivery, incremental efficiency, […]

Learn More March 20, 2018

A Little Hair of the Dog

You’ve heard me talking about knowing your donors’ identity or identities. One of the classic examples is cat people versus dog people: it’s simple, there are two options, and you can see how messaging would be different for each group. But it took a for-profit to give an interesting example of a next logical step […]

Learn More February 28, 2018

Feedback Week: What People Don’t Like about Your Online Giving Process

Yesterday, we covered the two most frequent donor feedback comments. Today, we’re going to talk about #3, #5, #9, and #12. Why jump around? Because they all have to do with online giving: I want more online giving options! Make it easier to donate online! Why doesn’t it save my info online? That’s not what […]

Learn More February 15, 2018

Fundraising’s Silver Bullet

Tom just weighed in from summertime New Zealand with the suggestion that we once again take up the important subject of donor service. He accompanied his suggestion with this quote from Seth Godin. “Reactive customer service waits until something is broken. We leave it up to the annoyed customer to go to the trouble of […]

Learn More February 12, 2018

Why “Trust” Matters in Fundraising. And What To Do About It.

The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust in the U.S. has suffered the largest-ever-recorded drop in the survey’s history among the general population. Even more troubling, trust among the informed public (that would be our donors) in the U.S. imploded, plunging 23 points to 45, making it now the lowest of the 28 countries surveyed— below […]

Learn More February 9, 2018

Brainstorming Donor Identities

I’ve been preaching testing donor identities as ways of segmentation your file even in my pre-Agitator days. But here’s a secret: not all donor identities are created equal. Remember that the goal of a good segmentation – including an identity segmentation – is to minimize difference among group members and to maximize difference among different […]

Learn More February 7, 2018

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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Behavioral Science Posts

Are Your New Donors Hiding in Plain Sight?

YourMediaCompany.org

WANTED: Fundraisers With Merger, Acquisition and Investment Banking Experience

Taming Facebook with Identity

Low Risk Approach to High Reward Discovery

A Little Hair of the Dog

Feedback Week: What People Don’t Like about Your Online Giving Process

Fundraising’s Silver Bullet

Why “Trust” Matters in Fundraising. And What To Do About It.

Brainstorming Donor Identities

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?

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?

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?

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?

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

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Commitment System

Donor Feedback Platform™

PreTest Tool

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