Meet Gary
In this white paper, Your Donor in 3D, fundraising agency Good Works introduces Gary … your typical three-dimensional donor.
Their point is that fundraisers need to speak to three aspects of the donor’s awareness — rational, emotional and spiritual.
The white paper elaborates on these eight ways to conduct the conversation …
1. Tell stories — lots of stories!
2. Are your stories from someone?
3. Press emotional buttons.
4. Make it sensual.
5. Make your facts and figures easy to digest.
6. The cause comes first — always!
7. Express your beliefs.
8. Explicit purpose & meaning.
Very good paper and advice. And Good Works backs it up with this research.
Tom
2 responses to “Meet Gary”
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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# 4 made me stop and think. At first I thought it was a typo and and should have read “sensory” which made me think about how one might evoke a donor’s sense of smell, touch, hearing, visual, etc. An intriguing notion in and of itself.
Then I followed the link to the actual report and realized they are really talking about sexual, as in passion and excitement – that unmistakeable feeling of attraction or falling in love. A very powerful notion, that. Those are wonderful feelings – and quite outside just intellectual /rational appeal.
Amazing paper – here’s hoping my organization will take this advice