Doing The Same. Hoping For A Different Result.
Tom’s pieces on Who’s Fibbing? and Are We Getting Roasted? have triggered a lively dialogue for which both Tom and I are grateful. Vigorous discussion at the Agitator’s family table is always welcome.
So let’s keep it going with this video introduction:
Clearly, many folks know what they should do, but don’t. So like the golfing buddies in that BMW advert, they continue with the same-old-same-old. And others simply won’t accept the best proven practices because they interfere with already set-in-stone beliefs. Pitiful. But, hey that seems to be reality.
What fascinates and puzzles me is why, in the face of documented evidence, we don’t change our practices. You would think a multi-billion dollar industry like ours would have a readily accessible knowledge base of standards and practices, created in a disciplined and rigorous manner.
Chuck Longfield, the chief scientist at Blackbaud, has long advocated on behalf of this need. He points out that the medical profession has standards, empirically tested, clinically proven, easily accessible and followed by physicians around the globe. A course of penicillin for strep throat in Los Angeles is the same as the course of penicillin given to a patient with strep throat in Melbourne, Australia.
Frankly, that’s what separates from a trade from a profession. Withcraft and tribal ‘wisdom’ from empirical knowledge.
The comments to Tom’s posts give me hope that folks are truly willing to share. And that’s terrific.
What gives me pause is the quality of the sharing.
At the end of the day, witchcraft is still witchcraft. Until there’s an empirically-based and peer-reviewed resource for ‘best practices’, too many fundraisers will be stuck relying on anecdote and conjecture.
As Rod Taylor basically asked in his comment to Tom’s post, “Where’s the beef?” Where’s the proof of what works and what does not?
Here are some of the basic questions we should be asking and eventually answering with empirical and peer reviewed precision:
• Does almost any any nonprofit on Earth really know why folks give to them and why they stop giving?
• Why is ‘donor-centric’ such a failed and dangerous term? Doesn’t it really obscure pursuit of the more meaningful questions that should go to measuring donor experience? Hate to tell you, but the use — no matter how frequent — of pronouns ‘you’, ‘us’, ‘we’ isn’t enough to get the sector into donor retention heaven.
• Why do we persist in pushing countless appeal after appeal after appeal on the the belief that more makes more, when in reality it really does not. See Nick Ellinger’s post on this tactic or any one of those by The Agitator on asking less and raising more. Here, here, here and here.
• Do we truly know and understand our donors’ concerns? Why in the world don’t we regularly and systematically seek feedback and input from our donors?
What would it take to put together a process for gathering, peer-reviewing and then sharing empirical information about the tactics, practices and actions that attract or repel donors?
I don’t pretend to have the answer and there are a thousand niggling questions, like “Who pays?” …. ”Who does the peer-reviewing?” … and on and on.
What I do know is that until we find it in ourselves to develop rigorous knowledge sharing systems, built on empirically proven practices, capable of answering the key questions being asked … we’ll continue shooting in the dark.
Roger
4 responses to “Doing The Same. Hoping For A Different Result.”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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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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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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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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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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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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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I continue to be struck that volume has become the defining trait for ‘donor-centric’, though I understand why, while also arguing it kind of misses the point.
Not that volume isn’t a problem – it is a horribly flawed model that is playing out for every large charity of note. Massive diminishing returns and no answer to solve it other than send more, which merely shifts total dollars.
News flash: An appeal that generates net revenue is not the same thing as an appeal that raises total net for the business.
The Union of Concerned Scientists prove (if only to be a black swan at the moment) that people will shift their giving behavior to be comparable with past giving over fewer asks. In their case, a 65% reduction in asking resulted in almost the same total rev and more net. Importantly, they advertised this change to folks at the beginning of the year-long test to sensitive people to the new reality and speed up the behavior shift.
By comparison, we know of another charity that did a two year test, 50% reduction in asking but with no communication about the new reality. End of year one was a push and end of year two saw 20% increase in net.
In short, most (or at least many) give in spite of fundraising, not because of it.
Food for the Poor – DMA Charity of the Year – is nowhere close to optimum with 27 appeals and yet argue they are donor-centric having gone from 24 to 27 DM appeals. Even if they were raising money from robots there is massive waste by not modeling out the reality that exists – different “demand” curves with many folks only warranting a small fraction of the 27 and others in-between.
Enter the relevance red-herring, often a built-in excuse to keep doing what one is doing and if possible, increase it. Nobody is arguing for sending out irrelevant so why make the obvious point that it be relevant? Who makes that judgement? It is always an internal one with justification being we sent 3 more appeals and each netted money and therefore, they are all relevant. And again, data is clear, this does nothing but cannibalize from the future and very ineffectively at that given the massive diminishing returns as you increase number of asks.
But, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Speaking of “relevance”, there was a seminal study done analyzing the language and style and structure of fundraising copy relative to other bodies of work (e.g. academic) and it was an indictment nobody read – (well, Roger did) fundraising copy reads more like an academic abstract than personal, emotional narrative.
Everyone thinks their copy is ‘relevant’ because they think it is a personal, emotional narrative that puts the donor in the center, uses the proper pronouns, etc… Everyone also thinks they live at Lake Wobegon.
Most of it is crap – per this study – and even if it weren’t, nobody at Food for the Poor is likely arguing for sending out 54 appeals. Why not? They are all, by their accounting, relevant? What line in the sand exists that says 27 is ok but 54 is crazy talk? Chances are good that if you factor in e-appeals they are way over 54 for the year already.
Why do donors give to you and why do they stop? Build a business around satisfying those identities and motivations and smoothing out the mental pain and effort with crappy experiences and you’ve got a new business model, one not defined by volume and one that is the very essence of customer centric – we understand your needs and preferences and meet those to raise money.
The “ask” deserves very little credit in actually raising money (16% by our attribution models) and more of the blame for current world order.
By defining donor-centric as fixing the mess we created it really misses the point, even though volume is horribly broken as a model.
I love Food for the Poor. Angel Aloma, ED, embraced “donor-centricity” as a language strategy years ago … and has seen enormous growth as a result (per his own testimony). Frequency of mailing has nothing to do with donor-centricity. What in the world are we talking about here?
That’s what I’d like to know, Tom.
Frequency of mailing absolutely has something to do with donor-centricity if the volume causes irritation for most (not a minority and from donors, not non-donors), which it does when charities send out dozens of appeals – which is the case for most large charities (mail plus email). This is not conjecture or anecdote. Rigorous studies have been done to demonstrate this point. You can read about it here,
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/being-donor-centric-function-volume-even-though-biz-model-schulman?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publish.
Raising tiny bits of additional net revenue on piece 25, 26 and 27 (as Food For the Poor) did when adding those last 3 appeals – in the name of donor-centricity – not only muddies the water of what donor-centric actually is/should be but is grossly inefficient even if these were mini-ATM’s and the notion of a donor and their human experience (frustration, annoyance, giving in spite of the ‘begging’ letters, as they are often referred) were ignored.
The idea that donor-centric is solely or even mostly about language is perhaps the biggest impediment to change and growth that can come from an actual donor-centric business model that starts with understanding (continually) why donors give to your charity (specifically) and why they stop and building product, communications and dare I say it , journeys accordingly.