Throughout more than a century of publication, the Sears catalog was the go-to source for American shoppers seeking out standard home goods. But nestled between listings for hammocks and baseball uniforms, you could also buy… dynamite. Yes, actual dynamite—no license required, no background checks, just 13 cents a pound (adjusted for inflation, still absurdly cheap). All you needed was a mailing address and an adventurous spirit. They even threw in a handy booklet on “How Not to Blow Yourself Up.”

Looking back, it’s easy to shake our heads and laugh. Can you believe they did that? But before we get too smug, consider what fundraising professionals do today in the name of “best practices” that might one day inspire similar disbelief. Here are some fundraising norms that, through the lens of behavioral science and psychological well-being, might have future fundraisers saying, “Wait… they thought that was a good idea?”

1. High-Volume Solicitation to Get 1(ish) Gifts Per Year

The logic: If one ask doesn’t work, maybe 20 will.

The behavioral science: Repeated exposure leads to donor irritation or tuning out.  The act of giving doesn’t have a linear relationship with volume of soliciting.  Over-solicitation transforms giving from an act of personal significance into an annoying task to be avoided. This approach undermines autonomy, making donors feel pressured rather than empowered.

2. Renting Donor Names to Other Charities

The logic: Let’s monetize our donor list. Easy revenue!

The behavioral science: Trust is the cornerstone of any relationship. Donors didn’t sign up for a subscription to “Charity Spam Monthly.” This practice violates the psychological contract donors have with organizations, eroding the sense of connection and relatedness, as donors feel commodified rather than valued.

3. Matching Gift Offers

The logic: Double the impact! Irresistible, right?

The behavioral science: While certain types of matches can work in certain contexts, it’s become the go-to crutch and it undermines intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic rewards like matches can dilute genuine emotional connections, making giving feel transactional rather than meaningful. This can erode donors’ sense of competence in making an impact independently.  Not to mention your matching gift offer looks 99.9% like every other one.

4. Faux Emergencies

The logic: Urgency drives action. Create an emergency if you don’t have one.

The behavioral science: Short-term gains, long-term damage. Manufactured crises exploit the scarcity heuristic but at the cost of credibility. Over time, supporters become cynical and emotionally numb, much like the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

5. Countdown Clocks

The logic: Ticking timers trigger immediate responses.

The behavioral science: Countdown clocks work well for flash sales, less so for fostering donor relationships. They tap into temporal scarcity but reduce giving to an impulsive act rather than a reflective, values-based decision. This tactic diminishes autonomy by coercing quick decisions rather than fostering thoughtful choice.

6. The “Annual Fund” as Rationale

The logic: It’s that time of year again. Give because… it’s annual!

The behavioral science: Humans aren’t inspired by calendars. The “annual fund” lacks narrative, purpose, or emotional resonance. Without a compelling identity alignment or story, it’s just noise. It fails to support relatedness, as it doesn’t connect to the donor’s personal values or experiences.

7. Premiums (Front-End Items, Back-End Trinkets)

The logic: Send a tote bag, get a gift. Easy math.

The behavioral science: This flips giving from an altruistic act to a transactional exchange. The crowding-out effect shows that introducing material rewards can diminish the donor’s intrinsic motivation, reducing future generosity. It also undermines autonomy, making giving feel like an obligation to receive something in return.

8. Descriptive, Book-Report Style Writing vs. Rich, Narrative Storytelling

The logic: Just the facts, ma’am.

The behavioral science: Stories engage the emotional brain far more effectively than data dumps. Rich narratives foster empathy, identification, and memory retention, making them far more persuasive than sterile recitations of facts. Effective storytelling enhances relatedness by creating emotional connections.

9. One-Size-Fits-All Fundraising

The logic: Efficiency! Scale! Uniformity!

The behavioral science: People crave personal relevance. The self-reference effect shows that messages tailored to an individual’s identity and values are far more impactful. Homogenized appeals ignore the psychological diversity of donor motivations, undermining both autonomy and relatedness.

10. Attribution Based on Last Touch or First Touch

The logic: Simple models are easy to track. Done and dusted.

The behavioral science: Human behavior is rarely linear. Attribution bias oversimplifies complex decision-making journeys. Reducing donor behavior to a single “touchpoint” ignores the cumulative impact of multiple interactions over time.

11. Little to No Zero-Party Data Collection

The logic: Why ask donors what they care about when we can infer it from their transactions?

The behavioral science: Zero-party data — information a supporter willingly shares — is gold for building meaningful connections. Ignoring this misses opportunities for authentic engagement based on values and preferences only the donor can articulate. This neglect diminishes autonomy, as donors aren’t given the chance to express their interests and motivations.

12. Journey Mapping on Sticky Notes Without Actual Donor Insights

The logic: We know our donors. Let’s map it out ourselves.

The behavioral science: Empathy gaps are real. Without direct donor feedback, journey maps reflect internal assumptions, not actual experiences. It’s like drawing a map of Paris without ever leaving your office in Peoria. This practice ignores the donor’s competence and their ability to articulate their own journey.

13. Fake Surveys to Create “Engagement”

The logic: Ask meaningless questions to make donors feel involved.

The behavioral science: Authenticity matters. Pseudointeraction breeds cynicism when people realize their input doesn’t influence anything meaningful. True engagement comes from listening and acting on what you hear. This undermines both autonomy and relatedness, as donors feel manipulated rather than heard.

14. Defining “Engagement” as Random Non-Financial Activities

The logic: More clicks, more likes, more engagement!

The behavioral science: Engagement isn’t a checklist of behaviors; it’s a mindset—a state of being deeply engrossed, emotionally invested, and mentally committed. By reducing it to surface-level actions, we create an arms race of non-financial content that often misses the mark. This approach also generates false negatives, overlooking supporters who are mentally committed but don’t participate in traditional “engagement” activities. They may, for instance, pay close attention to your passive, one-way communications without any overt interactions.

15. Treating Donors as Data Points, Not People

The logic: Segmentation is about demographics and past behavior.

The behavioral science: Identity and values drive behavior more than static data points. Without understanding the psychological drivers behind giving, segmentation misses the mark. This reductionist approach undermines relatedness, as donors feel like numbers rather than valued individuals.

16. Ignoring Brand Awareness, Recall, and Distinctive Assets for Short-Term Direct Response

The logic: Why invest in brand building when direct response brings immediate results?

The behavioral science: Research consistently shows that sustainable growth requires a balance between brand-building and direct response. Studies from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) highlight that brands prioritizing long-term brand equity see significantly higher growth rates than those focused solely on short-term activation. Relying exclusively on direct response leads to diminishing returns as audience fatigue sets in quickly, and you can’t stack short-term wins indefinitely to achieve long-term growth.  There’s very little building of future demand with direct response dialed to 100%, only harvesting current demand.

In fundraising, as in life, it’s easy to get stuck doing things because “that’s how it’s always been done.”  In medicine it’s roughly true that half of what’s known changes every five years.  Bloodletting, leeches and lobotomies were ‘best practice’ until they weren’t.

It’s way past due time to blow things up and build best practice on the pyschology of why people give and why they stop.  I might know a place where we can get some dynamite.

Kevin