Jeff Brooks To Charity Navigator: Shut Up!
In this recent post, Merkle creative director and blogger Jeff Brooks takes on Charity Navigator for whining about "junk mail" and for buying into the "myth that fundraising is a form of harassment."
Right on Jeff!
And he doesn’t just complain. He gives four very sound bits of advice for how you should deal with donor resistance to getting more stuff in their mailbox:
1. Don’t let a noisy handful of complainers drive your mail policy.
2. But do respect your complainers.
3. Create opportunities for donors to take control of the relationship.
And to me most important of all …
4. Be relevant.
I love this post. Jeff, you deserve a raise!
Tom
2 responses to “Jeff Brooks To Charity Navigator: Shut Up!”
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 […]
Read Full Answer
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, […]
Read Full Answer
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 […]
Read Full Answer
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 […]
Read Full Answer
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 […]
Read Full Answer
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 […]
Read Full Answer
Herewith are my comments as posted on the Donor Power blog when Jeff Brooks’ piece was originally published on June 16:
‘To set the record straight, Charity Navigator does not “buy into the myth that fundraising is a form of harassment”. The video was hardly an indictment of what we consider the respectful way that the vast majority of charities go about fundraising, including direct mail appeals. Rather, it was aimed at assisting those on the receiving end of endless appeals, and who are fed up with the practice (and we receive complaints by the thousands every year), to take a proactive approach to remedy the situation. Your advice to charities as bulleted in your blog piece is all well and good if they take it, but our experience (yes, we are givers ourselves with drawers full of “gifts”, including enough address labels to last two lifetimes) is that a good many of the bad actors frankly don’t give a darn. Until they do, we’ll be happy to continue to provide individual donors with the tools and information they need to stop what is, in their view, excessive soliciting. After all, it is about the donor, isn’t it?’
Ken Berger, President & CEO
Charity Navigator
I think there is a greater point here that is being missed as some are taking offense to the challenging thinking.
Demographically, I am a Gen X’er and have been in fundraising for over 15 years. And, I believe in direct response. It works…so far! But I have to tell you, as a donor, I am increasingly resistant to the”push” tactics that have been inherent in the direct response mentality. Reality is, that as younger donors come on stream (who knows when?), they want to be in control and they will turn you off more quickly than their Boomer or Civic predecessor donors.
The question in my mind is, will charities be able to transition to a “pull” strategy to transition to more engagement tactics than interruption tactics? It’s a difficult transition. I’ve been struggling with this myself, but I think we’re going to have to become far more clever as marketers of our mission.