Is This Any Way To Report To Your Donors?
You bet it is!
I recently received this email from Charity: Water
This organization just keeps impressing me over and over. Click below to watch the video.
Rachel’s Gift. One Year Later.
Call me a marshmallow, but it got me crying. See how long you last.
Tom
3 responses to “Is This Any Way To Report To Your Donors?”
Behavioral Science Q & A
Thanks so much for raising this. Yes, capturing donor information can be helpful for stewardship like newsletters, thank-you letters, impact updates. But how you ask matters. Forcing full data capture introduces friction that can significantly depress conversion, many donors may simply abandon the process. Beyond the friction itself, required fields also shift the emotional experience […]
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Unlike holidays that everyone already knows, Giving Tuesday is a created event. Many donors recognize the name but not the exact timing, so referencing it becomes a helpful cue. It serves as a reminder and taps into social norm activation (“everyone’s giving today”), which boosts response. However, we still want it paired with the mission, […]
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When a subject line leads with the match (“Your gift matched!”), it risks triggering market-norm thinking: the sense that giving is a financial transaction rather than an act rooted in values, identity, and care. This shift reduces intrinsic motivation and, over time, can weaken donor satisfaction and long-term engagement. It also makes the email indistinguishable […]
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There’s no evidence that QR codes suppress mid-value giving; all available research suggests they either help or have no negative effect. In fact, behavioral and usability research consistently shows the opposite: reducing friction at any point in the donation process increases completion rates and total response. And that has nothing to do with capacity and […]
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What you’re experiencing is very common. Resistance often isn’t about capability, but about motivation quality. If board members feel pushed into fundraising, that triggers controlled motivation (low quality motivation) i.e. obligation, guilt, or fear of judgment, which often results in avoidance. Instead, we need to create conditions for volitional motivation (high quality motivation) by satisfying […]
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That’s a really thoughtful question, and you’re not the first to raise it. Many of our clients have been cautious about placing the ask at the very end. To address their concern, we’ve tested both approaches, and the results are clear: when the ask comes last, even if that means it appears on the second […]
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I know I sound like a cynic… the email is great… the video is terrific… but… if no one clicked thru, it may not be as impressive to all of us.
I wonder… do you know the delivery rate, open rate, and (most important) the click-thru rate for this email effort. In other words… did anyone actually watch the video besides us?
I blogged about it too!
http://www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/blog/2012/07/30/what-did-you-do-with-the-money-you-raised-last-year/
Great stuff.
Tom, I’m with you – perhaps it’s because my son is the same age as Rachel or perhaps it’s because I’m a marshmallow too but I lasted about 30 seconds before crying. What an inspirational family.
With my hard fundraisers hat on, I notice that they’ve gone on to set up another campaign to raise money in Cambodia so presumably, charity:water aims to encourage future gifts from donors to the original campaign? They’ve raised about $23k to date so obviously, it has resulted in further donations. Very impressed by this charity too – not just their creativity in engaging with donors but the way they’ve involved Rachel’s family.