Eminence vs. Evidence In Fundraising–Part 1: Emerging from the Dark Ages
Slowly, ever so slowly, fundraising is emerging from its Dark Ages of reliance on myth, tribal wisdom, and so-called ‘best practices’.
For generations, fundraising ‘know how’ has been driven by anecdotes and passed-along rules of thumb largely free of any empirical or scientific validation.
Examples of our trade’s reliance on received wisdom abound. “Mail more, make more.” … “A 2 for 1 match works far better than a 1 for 1 match.” … “You need 33% of your goal in hand before you publicly announce a capital campaign.” And on and on.
At one time or another all of us have accepted and executed programs based on this conventional wisdom — especially if it’s being delivered by an eminent and respected fundraising veteran with lots of hands-on experience. Eminence trumping evidence.
Like the history of medicine, which is filled with the wrong (and deadly) convictions of eminent physicians, the history of fundraising has followed the same path. And so we all should be alert to ‘often-wrong-never-in-doubt’ sure-fire advice of ‘experts’ based mainly on hearsay … if not an over-active imagination.
Fortunately, it’s becoming less and less acceptable make and defend decisions on an ‘I think’ or ‘Mr. Expert said’ basis with no empirical backup. The increase in the application of behavioral science research to fundraising, the easy and inexpensive availability of predictive analytics, and the growth in numbers of fundraisers who actually understand numbers represent significant advances out of the swamp of guesswork and myth.
Of course our trade won’t transform from its current eminence-based state to one more evidence-based overnight. In fact, the path to empiricism and scientific proof will be long and rocky. And plenty of disagreement, tension, name-calling, or worse will mark the journey.
Beyond the usual battles involving egos there are practical/financial reasons why the wisdom of the eminent will prevail until that bubble collapses under rigorous testing. And that will take a long, long time. Folk wisdom often has a way of overcoming science; particularly where fundraising is concerned.
Take direct mail fundraising as an example. It is becoming increasingly clear that with the use of predictive analytics, attention to donor preferences, and observing the experiences of other nonprofits that the maxim ‘ask more, raise more’ is far more myth than fact. But regardless of mounting evidence that organizations can make more by asking less, it’s unlikely that many consultants whose fees are based on volume will rush to embrace these findings. Mailing high volumes of direct mail is lucrative — for the direct mail agencies.
My point is not to single out volume mailers and direct mail agencies but to raise a general concern that those who persist in ignoring the findings of the growing body of behavioral science, who avoid the use of predictive analytics and, most importantly, whistle past the graveyard of the past while the world changes are doing an immense disservice to both donors and the organizations they claim to serve.
In Part 6 of The Agitator’s Barriers to Growth series, I noted that “You’d think a $300+ billion industry like ours would have empirically based standards and practices readily available and accessible to all.”
After all, most sectors — ranging from apple growers to doctors and hospitals, and even zoos — have them. Fundraising doesn’t.
Of course there are those who excuse or justify the status quo. “Yes, but fundraising is an art, not a science.” Such utter nonsense.
Medicine is both an art and a science. And physicians, nurses and hospitals have Standards of Care specifying appropriate treatment based on scientific evidence and the collaborative sharing of information between medical professionals involved in the treatment of a given condition. A patient in California with a respiratory infection is likely to get the same course of antibiotic treatment as the patient in London with the same condition.
Chuck Longfield, Blackbaud’s Chief Scientist, has long preached the need for more research and documentation of best practices in our sector. A process by which the ‘best practices’ for procedures most organizations must perform — collection of monthly pledges, thank yous and acknowledgements, for example — are peer reviewed, documented and then made available to the sector.
At the same time, we need to find better ways to make the reams of quality academic research (sometimes far too dense) in the behavioral and neurosciences more accessible and useful to fundraising practitioners.
Such efforts would represent a monumental and expensive undertaking. But far less expensive than the endless waste that now occurs in our sector, where fundamental operational decisions — and costly mistakes — are based mostly on anecdotes and tribal wisdom.
Way back in 2011, Adrian Salmon, a UK fundraiser, responding to the announcement of The Agitator’s Flat Earth Fundraising series summed up the need quite well:
“Roger and Tom, look forward to seeing the fantastic new things people are doing, BUT I also want to see great examples of tried and true fundraising discipline being applied!
“Who keeps a rigorous record of all their tests nowadays? And knows what to test, and how to act on the results?
“Who really celebrates and inspires their telephone or face to face fundraising teams, whether in-house or agency — two of the most powerful tools any mass-market fundraiser has access to?
“Who’s using new media most effectively to capture those all-important phone numbers where real people can actually be reached, and where you can have a real dialogue with them?
“Who knows their cost per donor for acquisition and retention across all of their channels and demographics?
“Who’s really ‘developing’ their donors?
“So often a lot of what passes as ‘innovation’ seems to me to be a flight from the bits of fundraising that we think are beneath us — ‘Now that I’ve got this great new technique, I can stop bothering my supporters with those awful phone calls’, etc, etc.
“We mustn’t encourage that any further, surely…”
Adrian’s absolutely correct. If our sector is going to grow to meet the challenges of the future, we must find a way to more rigorously examine and identify ‘best practices’ and make this knowledge accessible to all.
To some extent, Adrian’s plea has been answered. Right in his home territory of the UK. But not without some controversy.
In my next post, I’ll expand on Tom and my post on The Commission on the Donor Experience and the healthy reaction and debate it’s spawned involving both eminence and evidence.
Roger
8 responses to “Eminence vs. Evidence In Fundraising–Part 1: Emerging from the Dark Ages”
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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A crucial issue Roger. About 100 blogs ago I wrote about the indispensable guard book and the decline of rigorous testing among DM fundraisers. My plea was prompted by two young fundraisers who said to me, ‘What’s a guard book?’ and, ‘Oh, our agency keeps track of response data and such stuff…I think’.
http://www.kenburnett.com/BlogGuard%20book.html
What I dislike about the current direction of this debate is the prevailing feeling that somehow fundraising practice is polarised between the academics (for evidence, but with limited hands-on experience) and the practitioners (for experience, but with scant actual evidence) with the two sides rarely connecting. It wasn’t always like this. Maybe I’m getting old but I yearn for the good old days when being a fundraiser was all about rigorous mastery of your results, ceaseless testing and constant improving. And reliable, carefully guarded knowledge of what works based on practical experience and solid evidence.
Thanks Roger, proper research is literally so critical to moving all of us beyond habit and myth. I would suggest highlighting the best research projects you have seen in the last decade.
Perhaps then the majority of fundraisers would know where to look…
What could be very helpful to our sector would be more open sharing of their internal research by the big sophisticated charities that do all of those things that you quote Adrian Salmon as asking about. But our mindset in the sector has been one of scarcity and competition with a belief that your dollar raised is one that came out of my pocket. Instead, if we believed that if all of us did a better job we’d finally break through that 2% of GDP barrier we’ve been stuck at.
I hate to keep harping, but many moons ago when I was in the highly competitive child sponsorship world, our organizations decided that we could get to together to share information and internal research on retention. The really big shops, like World Vision, had been testing and tracking like crazy. One small example… for an model where donors send a monthly amount, they knew from their testing exactly what acquisition price point dropped response and LTV dramatically. And they tested voluntary upgrades… asking their donors to voluntarily upgrade their monthly sponsorship donation which worked tremendously well. I was recently at a talk by the CEO of ALSAC, the fundraising arm of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital They have an extremely data driven fundraising program and are having great success using direct mail to recruit millenial donors . http://www.ceffect.com/2017/02/26/direct_mail_smiling_kids/
There is much to learn from the big folks who are doing all of this analytical work.
We do need more research. Smaller organizations – which is to say, most organizations – need it, too.
But while we’re focusing on the science here – with measurements, and statistics and all that… let’s not forget the human side of this, too.
All of that information is worth nothing without human relationship-building skills. I don’t believe fundraising can ever be reduced to a formula. (Though from my mailbox, it seems many large organizations do try… and fail, utterly.)
What most organizations need is actionable advice. They glean what they can from places like Agitator and studies from organizations mailing hundreds of thousands of pieces at a time. But if you have a list of 1,000, how much testing can you do? And will the findings of a huge organization apply to you? How do you know?
For instance, “mail less” makes a whole lot of sense if you’re talking about those big orgs flooding our mailboxes with the same old mailings. But most small organizations think once a year is enough. That would rarely be true. They need to mail more – and BETTER.
Keep the little guys in mind, please. They need all the help they can get!
When I was researching and writing my Masters thesis for St. Mary’s University’s Masters degree in Fund Development and Philanthropy, it was quite evident that there was practically NO published academic research in the field that would hold the test to standards.
We also need to define what constitutes research, who defines and conducts it and how rigorous is it to maintain its objectivity.
Thank you, Roger, for another thought-provoking read. And thank you, Ken. My book for small shop fundraisers opens with your post, “Bring back the indispensable guard book,” reprinted with permission.
And thank you, Gayle. I couldn’t agree more. When we open our mind and heart to abundance, it’s amazing the world of opportunities that open up. Thank you too for your post on St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
And, Mary, I couldn’t agree more. Thank you. Whenever I see the admonition to mail less, I do a headdesk. My students and members who have gone from one or two mailings a year to 3-7 have experienced phenomenal growth.
I agree with Mary and Pamela, In my experience with small shops ( and even some mid sized ones) fundraisers who haven’t been mentored or raised with a focus on data often can’t provide some basic information, like how many donors actually gave to you last year (rather than the number of their mailing list) or What is our retention rate? They have been measuring their success simply by did I raise as much money or more than last year. Which I’m not knocking, but one they look at retention data and realize that their one mailing is not going to get all of their donors to renew, they need to build more solicitations into their yearly schedule. And more feedback. And more opportunities for engagement.
I agree with Mary and Pamela, In my experience with small shops ( and even some mid sized ones) fundraisers who haven’t been mentored or raised with a focus on data often can’t provide some basic information, like “how many donors actually gave to you last year” (rather than the number of their mailing list) or “what is your retention rate?” They have been measuring their success simply by “did I raise as much money or more than last year?” Which I’m not knocking, but once they look at retention data and realize that their one mailing is not going to get all of their donors to renew, they need to build more solicitations into their yearly schedule. And more feedback. And more opportunities for engagement.