Behavioral Science Posts

What About People Who Don’t Answer Donor Surveys?

When you are in the business of asking donors about themselves and customizing their donor journeys based on that, you almost always get the question: “But what about those folks who don’t answer the survey?” There are couple of answers to this.  The first is: keep asking.  If there’s a datum that you need to […]

Learn More June 21, 2018

Are You a Modern or Medieval Fundraiser?

Donors are changing far faster today than most of the organizations they give to.  Their expectations are rising at the very moment their trust and loyalty are declining. Unfortunately, far too many nonprofits fail to understand this reality.  As a result they’re woefully unprepared to cope.   Few organizations understand why their donors give… few bother […]

Learn More June 20, 2018

What the Simpsons Can Teach Us About Retention Rate

You’ve just made a wise decision: you are investing more in both donor-focused retention efforts and new ways to bring in the right donors for your program.  Surely, your file will grow and your retention rate will increase. But when you look at the stats a year later, your file has grown.  But your retention […]

Learn More June 19, 2018

Get Your Millennial Audience Off My Lawn, Part 2

Back in January, I argued that generations were a flawed construct and demographics a poor way to segment.  In particular, the Millennial mythos seemed a mix of wishful thinking and harrumphing from previous generations. But since I posted that, there have enough “Millennials are doing X” think pieces (using the term “think” loosely) that it’s […]

Learn More June 15, 2018

The risks of cut-and-paste

Our fearless leader, Kevin Schulman, was on the Raise + Engage podcast with Steve MacLaughlin of Blackbaud last week.  Listening to the episode (there doesn’t seem to be an audio option on the page, but I’m assuming you can find a podcast), one thing that struck me was Kevin’s statement “There ought to be massive […]

Learn More June 14, 2018

The New PayPal: Touchless Transactions

70% of UK charities reported a decrease in their cash donations over the past three years.  What’s going on? Have we Brits stopping caring about causes? No, but we’re carrying less cash. The government is estimating that by 2026 only 21% of all financial transactions will be in cash, down from over 60% in 2006. […]

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Google Gives a Gift Horse

Back in January, I talked about how Facebook set up donation processing for nonprofits.  I’d largely advised not using the service, because Facebook controls the donor and the donor relationship. And there’s news!  No, silly; it’s not that Facebook has rethought its policy and is giving us more donor data.  When there is a sentence […]

Learn More June 13, 2018

Get Your Millennial Audience Off My Lawn, Part 2

Back in January, I argued that generations were a flawed construct and demographics a poor way to segment.  In particular, the Millennial mythos seemed a mix of wishful thinking and harrumphing from previous generations. But since I posted that, there have enough “Millennials are doing X” think pieces (using the term “think” loosely) that it’s […]

Learn More June 12, 2018

The Daily Mail Accidentally Gets One Thing Right

I say accidentally, because they sure tried to get everything wrong.  The piece I’m talking about is “How the first YEAR of your charity donation ends up in the hands of the chuggers” and talks about how the payback period on face-to-face recruitment is one-to-two years(ish). (Why didn’t I link to it?  Because it isn’t […]

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How Donors Choose Among Nonprofits: The Role of Identity: Part 2

This week, we’re looking back at previous posts and updating them with the state of the art. First up is a University of Kent study I reviewed a couple months ago. It found, in a nutshell, that donors tend to support charities that mean something to them personally. But that was just talking to people.  […]

Learn More June 11, 2018

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