When donors have their psychological needs satisfied, they’re more likely to give and keep giving because they’ll really want to. We previously talked about donors’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

As a quick refresher: autonomy refers to feelings of choice and volition; competence to feelings of making a positive difference, and relatedness to feelings of genuine connection.

But are these basic psychological needs actually reflected in your donors’ experience?

What better way to learn about your donors’ experience than asking them directly, right? [Unfortunately, this has yet to become standard practice across different fundraising channels, but that’s a discussion for another time.]

We at DonorVoice strongly believe in the importance of zero-party data and have developed our own Feedback Platform so our clients can listen to what their donors have to say (and combine it with other CRM data and act on it).

Having access to all this data and being curious about human behaviour is a perfect match. So, we recently sat down to mull over a random selection of about 18,000 open-ended comments that donors left about their recent F2F experience. These were collected over the last year or so from a variety of organizations around the world, some in the United States, some in the United Kingdom, others in Canada, and Australia. The charitable causes nearly spanned the entire gamut of fundraising.

Despite all the differences among the organizations, there were some very common donor experiences – positive and negative. Let’s start with the negative ones so we can end this blog on a positive note!

Here are the typical donor complaints we encountered, and our guess is that they come as no surprise to you.

• Allow one-time donation options!
• Don’t harass people when they say, “I’m sorry, I don’t have time.” I was late for work!
• Don’t be pushy and manipulative. Accept “no” for an answer. Be willing to accept one-time donations and not force someone to sign up for monthly donations.
• Tell a person from the very beginning that you are looking for monthly donations for at least a year. This was never mentioned till the very end.
• Felt very pressured to donate and wasn’t given much time to give a response. The representative just assumed I would donate and wouldn’t let me say “no.”
• Not be so persistent and guilt trip the customer.
• I felt that it was very much a “hard sell.” If I donated I was a good person, if not, how could I be so selfish?

Unfortunately, there’s a lot more where these came from… about 9000 more of the same sentiments!

It doesn’t take a behavioural scientist, or in this case two, to realize all these complaints indicate a donor’s suppressed autonomy: not having enough choice, feeling pressured, and feeling manipulated. None of us likes to be pushed around.

And when that happens, we might resentfully comply (but never engage in that behaviour again), or worse, do the exact opposite (fancy term for this is psychological reactance). Either way, that’s not the basis for a long and satisfactory relationship with your donors.

One of the best and easiest ways to improve is through the via negativa, that is, to stop performing behaviors that you know reliably lead to negative outcomes. Not thwarting your donors’ autonomy would be a good example: remove the “assumptive close” questions, be transparent, and, when you can, strive to provide choices that donors will find meaningful.

We understand that all this is easier said than done. Internal politics, processes and structure might be barriers for quick change. For example, it might truly be the case that one-time donations can’t be accommodated. Until that’s not going to be an issue in the future, there are still a couple of things you could do now to prevent your donors’ autonomy from being crushed.

First, provide them with a compelling rationale around recurring giving. Remember, supporting autonomy isn’t just about offering choices, but also about providing a clear, justifiable reason for your requests. Help your donors understand that a recurring gift is the most efficient way to have the most impact and that’s why this campaign is asking for monthly gifts only. They may still be disappointed, but the bitter feelings won’t linger.

Secondly, if they insist on a single gift, don’t just tell them it’s impossible and walk away. Train your fundraisers to direct them, or even show them, how/where they could make that gift. The donor will appreciate the extra effort and help, and a single gift is still better than no gift. Not to mention, this donor will be more likely to convert to monthly down the road compared to the frustrated person who wasn’t allowed to give what they could at the time.

Not all feedback was bad. As promised, here are some consistently positive elements in their interactions with a F2F fundraiser.

• The two gentlemen were personable and very nice and also very knowledgeable.
• Very friendly and persuasive.
• He was polite and not pushy!
• She was enthusiastic and sincere.
• Was very engaging and positive. He explained the work that you do in a compelling and exuberant way.

This sampling of comments – from a larger pool of nearly 10,000 similar ones – makes it clear that canvassers are generally good at fostering positive feelings of relatedness with donors. Donors enjoy upbeat, polite, genuine, and informative canvassers and it looks like the majority of them were just that. The typical exceptions were instances in which canvassers violated the donors’ autonomy, which, as expected, destroyed rapport.

What about the third psychological need, competence? It was a mixed bag. In some cases, supporters said the fundraiser made their impact crystal clear e.g. Now that I have spoken with a spokesperson and learned more about the programs and the places our donations go towards it makes me feel great to be part of such work. But in others, people were left wanting more information—e.g., [We need] More visibility of what you are contributing to. We only hear of things that are major disasters. What other things are going on locally?

Based on this small sample, we could say F2F fundraisers:

• Are doing well at establishing connection and building rapport. Relatedness, check.
• Ought to do a lot better to support donor autonomy. Autonomy, by far, was the biggest issue.
• Are showing impact but there’s room for improvement. Competence, so-so.

 What does all this mean for you?

1. Hiring the right people for the job is key and the fundraiser’s personality shouldn’t be overlooked. When it comes to canvasser recruitment, screen candidates based on their personality traits and opt for Extraverted, Agreeable, and Conscientious individuals. Even with minimal guidance, these canvassers are more likely to have good rapport with donors: They’ll be upbeat, polite, and they’ll strive to do a good job.
2. When developing your script, ensure that the basic psychological needs are “baked in the cake”: offer a good rationale and meaningful choices where possible, don’t be manipulative, and emphasize the real positive difference that supporters can make.

• As for canvasser training? After you’ve hired the right people, provide them with concrete examples of donor impact that they can share, stress how guilt or pressure should never be part of the pitch and, ideally, give them the necessary tools to offer supporters more choice.

Kiki and Stefano