You’re young or old, wealthy or working-class, conservative or progressive, male or female. These are easy-to-find labels and we all sort into multiple categories and for these reasons, we assume it must be meaningful.  So, we dutifully segment our lists, thinking that targeting “women donors” or “millennials” or “high-net-worth individuals” is the key to unlocking giving.

But what matters depends on situation and context.  It’s both simple and involved and a fascinating study on police behavior, race and political affiliation illustrates the point.  And if fundraisers are paying attention, it holds a lesson far more useful than another round of “next-gen donor” trend reports.

The Police Identity Paradox

Republicans are much more likely to support aggressive policing than Democrats.  Police officers in the U.S. skew pretty heavily Republican and White.

The White Republican officers often police communities that don’t look like them—racially, politically, socioeconomically. You might expect these mismatches to result in different policing outcomes; maybe White Republican cops engage in more aggressive policing actions than Black Democratic cops.

They don’t.

Despite their personal identities, officers behave the same way when performing their job, as measured by key enforcement actions such as arrest rates, use of force, and stop frequency. The study found no significant partisan differences in enforcement—a White Republican cop polices a Black Democratic neighborhood the same way a Black Democratic cop does.

How come?  Because it’s not about how many identies you hold nor is it random on which one matters. Identities are activated by the situation.  When officers put on the uniform, their strongest, most salient identity isn’t race or party. It’s being a police officer.

We call this active vs. passive identity. We all belong to multiple identity groups but the identity most relevant to the situation swamps everything else.

Why Passive Identities Fail in Fundraising

Fundraisers make the same mistake as those who expected different policing outcomes by race or politics. They assume passive identity labels predict giving behavior.

• “Young professionals”
• “Women donors”
• “Generational mumbo jumbo”
• “High-net-worth individuals”

None of these tell you why someone would give to your cause. They’re passive identities—descriptive, but not decision-driving. Just like a police officer’s race or party affiliation doesn’t predict their behavior in the field, a donor’s age or gender doesn’t explain their giving unless that identity is directly tied to the cause.

Mission Identity Fit: The Real Driver of Giving

The identity that moves people to act is the one closest to the mission.  We call this Mission Identity Fit—the alignment between who the donor sees themselves as in this context and the core purpose of the nonprofit.

This is why:

• Breast cancer caregivers donate to breast cancer charities.
• Conservationists give to conservation groups.
• Veterans support veterans’ organizations.
• People who hold a strong, community based identity support local charities.

These identities aren’t just present; they’re active and immediately relevant, creating intrinsic motivation to give. And they are obvious after the fact, but rarely prioritized upfront.

The Behavioral Science Behind It: SDT and Psychological Distance

The Practical Takeaway for Fundraisers

Stop targeting broad demographics and start finding the identity that best matches your mission.

Traditional demographic targeting often fails because it assumes broad traits like age or income dictate giving behavior, when in reality, motivation is driven by personal connection to the cause. Instead of asking, “Who can afford to give?” or “What age group responds best?”, ask:

✔ What identity is closest to our mission?

✔ How do we prime that identity in messaging?

✔  How do we reinforce the intrinsic motivation to act?

For example, we used third-party data to tag a conservation charity’s donors with animal vs. habitat identity and tailored phone scripts and ads accordingly, we saw a 49% lift in sustainer reactivation compared to non-tailored messaging.

Get this right, and everything changes. It’s not about who someone is—it’s about who they are in relation to your cause.

That’s the real driver of giving. That’s Mission Identity Fit.

Kevin