Avid Agitator readers know that donor identity is the core reason donors give to organizations.  There are a thousand ways to save lives and change lives, so donors tend to support charities that mean something to them personally.  And they will keep that preference even if the preferred cause is less efficient.

But did you know that identity even supercedes  issues and emotion?

We did a test using one religious organization’s advertising to evangelicals.  In the control case, folks were asked to donate to help Svetlana to make sure she didn’t go hungry.  In the test condition, the copy was made more emotional and focused in on Svetlana’s story and the issue of hunger.  That lead to an 18% increase in click-through rate.  A not-bad day’s work.

Then, we went the other direction.  Instead of focusing on Svetlana and her story, we focused it on the donor, saying “As an evangelical Christian” and talked about the return of Jews to Israel to fulfill biblical prophecy.  The call to action, instead of “Don’t let Svetlana down”, became “Receive God’s blessing by blessing the Jewish people.”  Less emotion, more identity focus.

This had an additional 29% increase in click-through rate over the emotional issue ad and a full 53% increase over the control.  Donor identity trumped emotion.  So the well-worn maxim “make them feel and they’ll give” is true to a point, but focusing on the individual reason for giving is more important.

Consequently, when we create our value exchange as Nick talked about Monday, we are doing so with a laser focus on what the donors desire to fulfill their wants and needs as part of their identity.

That want is almost never to donate.  We’ll talk more about the great case study from the Norwegian Cancer Society on Friday, but they started their process by asking their visitors what they wanted from the Society’s website.  From the list of 79 options, six received a quarter of the vote:

• Treatment of cancer
• Symptoms of cancer
• Preventing cancer
• Cancer types
• Latest research
• Choosing a hospital

Pulling up the rear– each with less than .5% of the vote, were:

• Donate
• Volunteer
• Memory gift
• Legacy gift

Shocking, I know: people came to a cancer organization’s site to learn about cancer, not to donate.  But three things are important here.

First, there is a much larger number of people coming for their reasons rather than your reasons.  You’d love everyone to come to your site to donate.  But they aren’t.

We focus so much on the things we want people to do – “let’s make the donate button red and flash and on every page!” – that we forgot to focus on what they want to do.  Because of our innate desire to reciprocate when things are given to us, we will donate, but after you give us what we came here for.  By focusing on the largest number of  people coming to the site, we are fishing from a larger pond and thus have more opportunity.

Second, these top reasons are identity-specific.  These are all reasons to come to the site if you have cancer, care about someone with cancer, or want to prevent cancer.  These are different groups.  Those wanting to prevent cancer don’t care about choosing a hospital.  Those who have cancer care about preventing a relapse rather than preventing it altogether.  Thus, the content you create to give to people to get their opt-in (and, hopefully, their donation) must fit the identity of the searcher.

Third, this isn’t just specific to your website.  Your digital ads to acquire constituents should be to your donor’s identities and about the content they want.  Why have a general email newsletter when you can create content specific to your constituents’ interests.  Even your offline appeals can feature these content pitches, as this content isn’t one time.  You want people of your desired identities to keep coming back to you for your content.  This can be an integral part of your member/supporter offer.  It keeps people coming back and it keeps them grateful you exist.

So, in summary:

• Find your donor identities
• Give the best of those identities what they want
• Ask them for donations for the reasons people with their donor identity give
• Repeat

Nick and I will talk Friday about some organizations that are succeeding with this give-to-get approach; hopefully, you’ll get some inspiration there.

Kevin