The YMCA thought they knew what their members wanted.  Then they asked their members.  The results, from The Power of Habit:

“[T]he accepted wisdom among YMCA executives was the people wanted fancy exercise equipment and sparkling, modern facilities.  The YMCA had spent millions of dollars building weight rooms and yoga studios.  When the surveys were analyzed, however, it turned out that while a facility’s attractiveness and the availability of workout machines might have caused people to join in the first place, what got them to stay was something else.  Retention, the data said, was driven by emotional factors, such as whether employees knew members’ names or said hello when they walked in.  People, it turns out, often go to the gym looking for a human connection, not a treadmill.”

The surveys they refer to here are 150,000 member surveys.

I’ll confess, this would not have occurred to me either.  As an introvert, I have cultivated my soft, pale, unattractive physique so no one is interested in talking to me at the gym.

And that’s sorta the point.  We are not our donors.  Even if we know we are not our donors, we don’t know how we are not our donors.  Playacting our donors’ desires is folly.

So, once you’ve fixed the issue that the person asked about (unless it’s how to donate an actual cow), now you can see if the system that created the issue also needs fixing.

Those of you who follow my writings religiously (thanks, mom and dad!) have heard me talk about:

• The organization that used feedback to get their donation page from 12% to 32% conversion in a month.
• The organization that switched to a new system and, unbeknownst to them, acknowledged everyone for the same donation amount, regardless of what they actually donated. They discovered it quickly, thanks to feedback.  (It’s difficult to say whether the $10 or the $1000 donors were more alarmed.)
• The organization that required a title on their donation form until a critical mass of feedback got them to drop this requirement.

These are great and important uses of feedback.  Suffice it to say that almost every online donation form could use a donor-advice-based facelift (or enema, depending on how long the page has remained fallow).

But I’ve already talked about those.  Instead, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite reasons for using feedback (or doing anything, really): proving myself right.

 “Precedent. The mother’s milk of you know, making your point and being right.” – Donna Moss, The West Wing, “Galileo”

Let’s say you’ve done a diligent job of pruning your telemarketing list of people who don’t like to receive phone calls.  However, while the donors who are being called don’t mind the calls (you think), your board chair does mind the calls.  Especially at dinner time.  S/he doesn’t know if s/he wants to be involved with an organization that would subject their donors to telemarketing (and doesn’t know his/her gender).

Donor feedback is the way to prove that you are right (or wrong; none of us is always right).  Everyone can have an opinion; not everyone gets data that agrees with them.

Or, you think your ask amounts start too high (after all, you advertise the impact of $10, but then your lowest acquisition ask amount is $50).  Believe me, if donors feel you are asking for too much, and you ask them for their opinion, they will tell you.

Yes, donors will often surprise you.  But they’ll also help you get off your hindquarters to do the things you always knew you needed to do.  It’s a lot harder to say, “Yes, the donors clearly want this, but I don’t want to give it to them.”

Nick