I’ll Take My Fundraising Cannibalism On the Rocks
As of yesterday, the high visibility ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ had produced $15.6 million from existing donors, plus 307,598 new donors for The ALS Association.
The campaign designed to build awareness and support research for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, goes like this: People make a video of themselves or a friend dumping a bucket of ice water on their heads, post it on Facebook, Instagram or other social media sites, and then challenge friends to do the same.
According to the New York Times, between June 1 and August 13 participants shared more than 1.2 million videos on Facebook and since July 29 mentioned the phenomenon more than 2.2 million times on Twitter, according to those sites.
The phenomenon is fueled by a host of celebrities and business people — from Lady Gaga to Bill Gates and hundreds more across the notoriety spectrum — joining in.
I was relishing the thought of at last having a socially acceptable excuse for dumping a ton of cold water on Tom when an email arrived from Tim Kersten, head of RobbinsKersten Direct.
He included a link to a piece by one William MacAskill, a research fellow in moral philosophy at Cambridge’s Emmanuel College, throwing (I can’t resist) cold water on the value of the Ice Bucket Challenge. Tim asked The Agitator to comment.
In a post on Quartz titled, The cold hard truth about the ice bucket challenge, MacAskill argues that:
“The key problem is funding cannibalism. That $3 million in donations doesn’t appear out of a vacuum. Because people on average are limited in how much they’re willing to donate to good causes, if someone donates $100 to the ALS Association, he or she will likely donate less to other charities.”
To back up his claim the author cites research from his own nonprofit, Giving What We Can, that for every $1 his charity raises, 50 cents “would have been donated anyway”.
Therefore, the argument goes, as a consequence of those millions raised for this high visibility campaign, other charities are deprived of desperately needed millions.
MacAskill goes on to note, “I believe this culture trades a small short-term gain in donations for a long-term harm by undermining a charitable attitude according to which there are serious problems in the world that desperately need our help, and that won’t be solved by a garbage pail, a video camera, and some frosty water.”
Citing psychological research into phenomena like ‘moral licensing’ — the idea that taking one good action leads the donor to compensate by taking fewer good actions in the future — the author goes on to note that “one damaging aspect of donor-focused philanthropy” is that it “encourages a culture of great praise for small gifts.”
Furthermore, he claims, this type of donor-focused philanthropy does additional damage by regarding all causes as equal.
To all of which my comment is: Bullshit!
I’m not doubting that Mr. MacAskill deeply believes in the points he’s making; particularly his point that in a serious world donors should take the time to study and really figure out which nonprofits truly offer the most effective benefits to those most in need, and then make as large a contribution as they can.
Or as he puts it: “Those who participate in the ice bucket challenge donate to ALS not, seemingly, because they’ve thought about the many problems in the world, and tried to figure out how they personally can best address those problems. Instead, they donate simply because ALS is the originator of the challenge. This is problematic. We should reward the charities that we believe do the most good, not those that have the best marketing strategy, otherwise the most successful charities will be those that are best at soliciting funds, not those that are best at making the world a better place.”
Alas, reality trumps wishful thinking when it comes to fundraising.
In my donor-centered, donor-focused world here’s what I think about the Ice Bucket Challenge:
- Any fundraiser who uses the excuse that “Our numbers are down because we lost contributions to the ALS campaign” should be fired for even offering such a lame excuse.
- More importantly, fundraisers who don’t know how to build a brand and presence with their own donors, capable of resisting poaching from fads, shouldn’t have a fundraising job in the first place.
- Anyone who’s not familiar with the singular, immutable power of donor-focused fundraising — whether involving ‘small’ or ‘mega’ gifts — is unlikely to be able to raise money in a bank vault, no matter how many psychological studies they cite.
- The fact is that, as of yesterday, The ALS Association has attracted 307,598 new donors. That’s 307,598 new donors to educate, upgrade and retain for a long-term value worth heaven only knows how much. (We’ll check back with ALS in a few months and find out what they’re doing to make the most all this.)
- Perhaps most important of all, The Ice Bucket Challenge has created awareness of a horrible disease among millions and demonstrated clearly that everyone can do something about it — even if it means serving their charity on the rocks.
What do you think? We’d sure like to hear from Agitator readers on this.
Roger
17 responses to “I’ll Take My Fundraising Cannibalism On the Rocks”
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The glaring hole in his argument “for every $1 his charity raises, 50 cents would have been donated anyway” is that 50 cents wouldn’t have.
No doubt some people that donate $10 to this challenge will then find themselves having to decline a $10 donation elsewhere. That’s unfortunate but it’s still a donation. However, the people we’re interested in are the ones that donate the $10 and then find themselves having to buy less drink, cigarettes, crap, etc. What the ‘for-good’ sector has effectively done is stolen some business from the ‘for-bad’ sector and made an effort at increasing national percentage donation levels that have otherwise remained pretty steady.
More here: http://changefundraising.blogspot.ie/2014/08/the-obligatory-icebucketchallenge-blog.html
When will “people” (fundraisers, donors, speculators, fact-deniers, etc.) stop with their well-intentioned but asinine commentary about giving and fundraising? When will these “people” quit using all and any excuse to compensate for the inadequacy of their own knowledge and competency?
Mr. MacAskill’s comments sound a bit like Eric Friedman’s book REINVENTING PHILANTHROPY: A FRAMEWORK FOR MORE EFFECTIVE GIVING. And a bit like the millions of $ that the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation spent on trying to convince prospects and donors to “give the right way.” Etc.
Maybe the idea of “donor-centered” is too plebeian? Too simple? Too much work? Oh gosh…
Kudos to ALS. I expect they might have a tough time retaining and upgrading those 307,000 new donors, but with $15MM to show for it, it’s an uptown problem.
How many times have we heard that we all compete for the donor’s discretionary income? …and marketing is the way we do it. (Is marketing a bad word now?)
ALS has done a fabulous job creating something new and clever (even if it might be a one-shot event), and as someone with a very close friend who died of ALS, I am quite happy to see them succeed.
IWITOT
Yep, I wish I’d thought of that.
It may not be perfect, and I expect that retention will be a huge challenge, but kudos to ALS for coming up with an inexpensive way to bring in hundreds of thousands of new donors, and millions of dollars. Isn’t that what we all daydream about?
Now I’m just waiting for all the copycats.
I’ve been silent about the challenge because at first it looked like a way out of donating. I’m happy for ALS the results.
At the heart of this campaign is the fact that it wasn’t the organization to start it (from what I have read) but a passionate gentleman with ALS who used his social media network to make it a viral thing. I think ALS has brilliantly (unless I missed it) taken a step back and let this thing stay grassroots, people/donor/participant focused, rather than speak over top of all that as an organization.
My concern for them is as Chris said: are they prepared to steward the donors? I truly hope so. I also don’t think this is their Movember.
I have never once as a fundraiser worried that my donations will go down – more so that like Leah said, the copycats will come out and leave a bad taste in the mouth of donors.
Roger, I was so glad to see your reaction. As I began to read, I was thinking: this idea is so awful to donors! It paints a picture of stingy people who have to have the money pulled from them to give. It says nothing about generosity or even fun.
I agree with everyone else, retention of these new donors will likely be tricky. But what a problem to have!
Donors don’t often make carefully considered charitable decisions, based on complex spreadsheets of social worth and ROI. They give where their hearts lead them. And if this silly (I mean that in a good way) challenge leads even a percentage of new donors to greater understanding of a really awful disease and the part they could play in overcoming it, well, that’s a win.
This is a great campaign for a little known cause that is often hard to raise money for. Good on them and be gone all those scarcity thinkers. People give because they want to and in this case 300,000 plus new people gave to ALS. Yes, I expect they will have to work hard to get good retention rates but every time they ask for another gift those people will have a smile on their face because ALS gave them a great experience and they felt good (albeit wet & cold)! It can be hard to discern between whinging and envy ……
The really interesting thing is that ALS didn’t come up with the idea at all! It started off as a stunt to get people to contribute to any charity of their choosing. Early on, someone picked ALS and it stuck.
http://time.com/3136507/als-ice-bucket-challenge-started/
Like others have stated already, ALS is going to have to come up with a new strategy to try to retain these donors, but that’s not a bad problem to have.
Roger – Great article! I linked your article to my post on the topic (we came down on the same side, of course). http://www.tripointfundraising.com/lessons-learned-from-als-ice-bucket-challenge-silly-stunt-or-brilliant-fundraising/
I hate to give MacAskill more attention by linking to his article (which I did as well) but it had to be done.
Thanks for sharing great content, as always!
Roger, as soon as I read the gentleman was a “research fellow in moral philosophy” I said to myself “this could be interesting” LOL. Donors give for a myriad of reasons usually as you know because an emotional button was pushed and instead of looking at 1 dollar for charity A means -1 dollar for charity B, it may mean the donor may not drink as many lattes that month or eat out as often. I especially have never bought into the finite pie theory of funds available from donors, I have never seen myself in competition with another nonprofit, I compete often with my past numbers but never with another development officer.
I laughed out loud at the sentence with the development officer who uses the lame excuse that their numbers are down because of the ALS campaign, thank you!
In terms of the origin of the campaign, according to this piece in the National Post, it did not start with Pete Frates.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/08/18/will-oremus-take-the-no-ice-bucket-challenge/
That said, full credit to ALS for an incredibly successful campaign.
What is particularly interesting to me about this challenge is the number of young people it has engaged. Isn’t that the problem we all struggle with as fundraisers… How to find the younger donors…?? It is ideas like this that encourage the participation of younger generations. The gift my 11 yr old daughter donated after participating isn’t being poached from any other organization…..the candy store down the street may lose a few sales though.
Roger, I have only one problem with your analysis: you really need to stop holding back and tell us what you really think about these things. 🙂
All kidding aside, I also want to applaud the creativity and risk-taking that has brought ALS this success. I was asking my staff today to think about the reactions in the senior meeting when the idea was first proposed. Can’t you just picture it.
My story is worth sharing. I lost an aunt to ALS many years ago and have never found my way to donating to them–until now. So when my 11-year-old goddaughter challenged me, I made a donation. So even though I’ve been brought in through an ice bucket challenge, I’m likely to stay engaged due to my prior history.
And for all those who say they’ll struggle with retention . . . I have a lot of clients who would welcome the problem of more than 300,000 new donors whose retention they need to worry about.
I love your post, Roger, and completely agree that most donors don’t take money from their “philanthropy budget” a reassign it. I think very thoughtful philanthropists might (making impact investments) but many who are responding are enjoying being part of the moment.
ALS has noted on their website: “Our top priority right now is acknowledging all the gifts made by donors to The ALS Association…We want to be the best stewards of this incredible influx of support. To do that, we need to be strategic in our decision making as to how the funds will be spent so that when people look back on this event in ten and twenty years, the Ice Bucket Challenge will be seen as a real game-changer for ALS.”
And really, isn’t that what matters with this fad? Thanking and stewarding donors and using the gifts for greatest impact? Why aren’t we celebrating THAT?
Good on ALS for the windfall of support and awareness. Excellent for understanding the challenges ahead and rising to meet them.
Tsk…tsk…tsk…..
Our friends in Europe and the developing countries are probably saying:
“There they go again….wasting our precious resources… and the energy it takes to make buckets full of ice cubes.”
Good thing this ain’t for a development or an environmental charity! 🙂
RP
For people whose memories go back that far, I am reminded of that 1980’s “jack-of-all-trades” fundraiser Hands Across America (see http://www.causeeffective.org/resources/blog/entry/ice-water-and-holding-hands). Meaning many things to many people, with clarity for none, it nonetheless raised $35 million (in 1986!) and started a lot of people on their way to a career in the nonprofit human services sector.
As others have said, the key for a nonprofit is helping the donor walk through the door that opened just a crack through an extreme-broad-based fundraising activity. That’s our job as fundraisers – the #icebucketchallenge is a hello. The next step in the exchange is ours.
Roger, I don’t doubt your experience or expertise but I can speak from my own – based in fact; just not your facts.
I only have a limited amount of money to donate. If I spend it somewhere I can’t snap my fingers and magic some more up becauses fundraisers deserve it due to their excellent efforts.
I agree with you about working smarter and being effective. But I couldn’t disagree more with your assertion that donors who flit between causes are fictitious and that tough choices about where to donate are not made by many individual givers.
And one last thing, there is a definite appeal to meme-based campaigning for a certain audience and I think we need to acknowledge (even if you do so begrudgingly) that there are people out there who give or get involved because they want to be involved… or on YouTube… or support friends and family. All of this they can do without being wedded to a cause or fundraiser, no matter how good that fundraiser’s efforts are.
Exhibit A are my own cousins… all younger than me and taking part in the ice bucket challenge because it was a laugh and got them more Likes. They couldn’t tell you what they raised money for but iw a few pounds for some good cause or another.