At the beginning of the week, Roger talked about behavioral science cues and how they can help you boost year-end giving.

Today, I’m going to cheat just a bit and move the conversation a few days forward: what do you do at the beginning of the year?

After the hangover wears off for those who not only feel, but imbibe, the spirit of the New Year, you probably start with New Year’s resolutions.

Why do we set these things on Jan 1 or 2?  Does it depend on the level of imbibement (imbibitude? imbibiocity? ) After all, it makes just as much sense to start a diet on August 13^th as the beginning of the year.

Dai, Milkman, and Riis researched this and found that landmarks that signal the passage of time, whether calendar-based (e.g., beginning of new week, month, year) or personal (e.g., birthday, holiday) are significant. They are the starts of our mental accounting periods (financial and otherwise) and we distance ourselves from the person we were before the landmark.

Now, good luck telling your parole officer that that wasn’t you that rode a police horse naked (I’m going for you are naked, not the horse, who usually would be saddled or something) down the Las Vegas Strip: that was November Clarissa.  But for the individual, people were significantly more likely to take on a commitment contract on a day early in the week or a month early in the year across all sorts of issues.

This has some clear implications for your ask strategy. This may be the time of the year when people are most pliable in changing the way they give.  Certain asks – membership, recurring donations, planned giving – are going to work better when someone is looking at their year, month, week, or life with a blank slate.  You can even reference this in your asking, priming the donor to be more accepting of something November Clarissa wouldn’t have done.

This also has implications for your organizational strategy.  The fresh start applies to you too. You can talk about goals completed and those yet to do. You can most easily roll out new programs or messaging.

And if you want to make a significant step forward in your donorcentricity, it’s also the perfect time to admit mistakes (gasp! swoon!) and pledge to do better.  If you’ve been collecting feedback throughout the year, you can announce your reaction to that feedback and what you are doing differently. Your donors will be more accepting of you working to be better if they are simultaneously trying to become their best selves.

You can see how one organization made this shift here.

This video was prepared back when they were trying a feedback-and-report-back approach with just a small part of their file.  Now, next month, they will be launching this program to their full file, with a fresh start for all of their donors.  Might it be a tactic you want to try?

Care to share some of your “Fresh Start” resolutions?

Nick