Old Codgers Online
Meet Jim Hannah, age 72, and Don Deitch, age 75. Both spend a lot of time online doing sophisticated stuff. According to Larry Dobrow writing in The Magazine of Online Media, Marketing & Advertising (OMMA), these guys shatter the stereotype of “seniors” being web adverse. Yet online marketers are still writing off the oldsters.
Dobrow's article is worth reading if you're inclined to dismiss your pre-Boomer constituency (you know, the ones who donate all that money) when it comes to online engagement.
Our takeaway from the piece is that you might need to be satisfied with using the online medium with this older segment for communications, service and education, as opposed to fundraising. The reason: only 14% of 65-plus men feel “somewhat” or “very” comfortable using a credit card to shop on the internet (no figures given for women), compared with 35% of the US population as a whole. This reluctance to charge online is very likely to curb online donating.
But as the article points out, following behind this oldest segment are nearly 36 million Web users between ages 50 and 64 years, who are even more comfortable with the online medium.
Our advice: don't let the youngsters plotting your nonprofit's online presence get away with design features, gimmicks and tactics that only appeal to fellow youngsters! The online audience is far more multi-generational these days.
Roger & Tom
Behavioral Science Q & A
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Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]
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There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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