Thanks, But No Thanks
A new study strongly questions the near-universal assumption that saying “thank you” and showing “impact” is the silver bullet for improving supporter value or increasing second gift conversion.
Take a deep breath.
Now, read on.
Titled Do Thank-You Calls Increase Charitable Giving? Expert Forecasts and Field Experimental Evidence, the study has spawned lots of debate and is a classic example of “best practices myth” vs “best practices fact.”
Dr. Anya Samek, an economist at the University of Southern California, and Chuck Longfield, the now-retired Chief Scientist at Blackbaud, studied 500,000 thank you calls to 600,000 donors spanning six years. They found zero effect from thank you calls on subsequent giving. The number of supporters making a second gift in the next year, and over the next four years, didn’t differ between those thanked and those not thanked. Neither did their donation amount.
Perhaps even more interesting and revealing: the authors asked fundraising professionals what they thought the effect of these thank you calls would be. The prediction of the pros? An increase of donor retention (here meaning second gift conversion) of about 80%. Ooops!
In a sector that has been told/sold ( Roger pleads ‘guilty’) that “thank you” is the universal panacea this is near heresy. But the cold facts are that these calls ticked all the “best” practice boxes:
- The call was personalized to the particular donor’s name with a live caller.
- The caller thanked the donor and talked about the impact of their gift.
- The call did not ask for money.
- An enhanced follow-up script asked for feedback at the end of the call to no avail.
The main objection raised in the chat rooms by defenders/peddlers of the status quo is the timing of the call, which was made 3-7 months after the gift. We should note that this objection came largely from the European side of the pond where monthly giving is the norm. In the case of this study, the calls were US-based (i.e., single gift) and the intent was to thank and show impact in the hope of triggering another donation. Thus, the rationale behind the delay is solid.
We do understand that if your aim is to stop or slow the attrition of monthly givers, you need to do something sooner than later. But why, in the face of evidence to the contrary, are folks so quick to say “thank you” calls would work if they were made sooner? Why the universal assumption, in the face of zero evidence, that saying thank you, via any channel, amounts to a “wow” moment that’ll increase loyalty?
The only intelligent reaction anyone should have after reading that paper is “I wonder if the same is true for calls made sooner?”
Of course, we are not opposed to saying, “Thank You.” Far from it. There are lots of instances when a communication conveying thanks and focusing on the donor’s impact are mighty powerful. What we abhor is the tendency to dismiss data simply because they go against our intuition.
In short, fundraisers run into trouble when they act on the basis of “I think” rather than on the data-driven basis of “I know.” If you really think the only issue is timing, then test thanking supporters earlier. In fact, the authors themselves invited more testing.
Also, would anyone objecting about timing now, after the fact, have said a priori that adding a thank you at month 7 would be a bad idea? This isn’t a rhetorical question. As noted earlier, the authors asked fundraising professionals what they thought the effect of these thank you calls would be. The pros predicted an increase in retention of 80%. In fact, the effect was zero!
Are those who still maintain the only problem was timing now advocating dropping “engagement” work for existing supporters on the basis that it’s too late? We sure hope not. In reality, the timing of proven and effective “thank you” efforts – seemingly “delayed” timing—have proven effective.
[See Adrian Sargeant’s Lessons From Philanthropic Psychology: How To Thank Your Donors and Double Giving over at Bloomerang.
The knee-jerk reaction to this study’s findings shines a spotlight on a far bigger and corrosive truth about testing and the generalizations arising from it: What’s been measured and managed is simply incomplete. In reality, as this study reports, the call worked for some donors and not for others. Those who had a positive experience with the call did, gave again; those who didn’t, lapsed. A clear call for asking about donor preferences, so you can avoid paying money to make a call that will make your donors less likely to donate.
The trouble lies in how our sector defines the “some” and the “others”. If we rely only on behavioral/transactional data and demographics we’re flying nearly blind because these traits are descriptive not predictive of a donor’s behavior. In the absence of the correct data element it’s nearly impossible to predict how a donor will react whether the issue is ‘timing’, ‘impact’, or just about any other variable.
What we do not know about the donors in this study who were called (or, most often, about a single one of the donors on our CRM’s) are the following:
- Their preference. We can assume some people don’t want to be called (or emailed, mailed) while others don’t mind. But we can’t presume to know who is who before picking up the phone
- Their commitment to your organization. We can assume some people have a stronger sense of relationship than others, meaning some will want to develop that relationship more than others. But we can’t presume to know who is who.
- Their identity. We can assume some people’s life experience means they support you for reason X and for other’s it is Y. But we can’t presume to know who is who before we launch into our one-size-fits-all thank you
- Their experience with the call. We can assume some people had a good experience on the call; their identity was affirmed, the person they spoke to was friendly/knowledgeable/sincere etc. And that others had the exact opposite experience. But we can’t presume to know who is who
Without these insights, any data we get is incomplete. Our supporters are not an anonymous mass with identical needs and preferences. So why do we expect all of them to react exactly the same to a thank you call (or anything else)?
The takeaway message from the Samek-Longfield study isn’t just that thank you calls might not work. The real insight is that the effect of a “thank you” call (or email/letter) differs based on people’s preferences, identities, commitment and experience. In this light, whether you say thank you 7 months later or the next day becomes secondary. You first need to figure out to whom the thank you call will be beneficial and to whom it will be detrimental to subsequent giving. Only then, can we truly figure out when to say, “thank you” and how to say it.
To find out more about essential information you may be missing from you file if you aren’t asking (feedback) and you aren’t sending a donor what’s appropriate what works for her/him (commitment) we recommend these two free webinars coming up this week and next:
- On June 19th, DonorVoice will talk about how learning about what builds commitment among your donors can decrease your costs while increasing giving to your organization in Which Half of Your Marketing Spend is Wasted? Register free here.
- On June 26th, in How Donor Intelligence Can Retain Your Sustaining Donors the Canadian Red Cross will share how they are listening to donors from the point of acquisition on and using that intelligence to retain their sustaining donors and improve their processes. Register free here.
In the words of Mark Twain: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Roger and Kiki
19 responses to “Thanks, But No Thanks”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]
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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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Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
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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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The headlines being used to report this work are misleading – and I guess they have to be to stimulate interest. (They certainly caught my eye !) But there’s no longer any grey on this. Our own field experiments show that it isn’t thank-you versus no thank-you that’s the issue – its how you thank that matters. And we’ve shown just what a difference that getting that right can make to the wellbeing of the supporter AND their giving. https://www.philanthropy-centre.org/reports/
Timing is important, but its role is much more nuanced. Donors who have been giving for a while (you can use the proxy of more than the median length of giving) should be thanked differently from how we thank relative newbies.
“Learning to Say Thank You” is available free to air. But if you find value in it, please do stop by our charity and make a donation in the amount you think its worth. Without your support we won’t be able to continue doing work like this to benefit the profession. You’ll get a very nice thank-you if you do – and together we can run more experiments to build the body of knowledge!
http://philanthropy-institute.org.uk/donate/
Adrian, you are 100% correct. The headlines are misleading. Here are some technical reasons why.
1. Most of the “thank you” treatment group WEREN’T THANKED.
(See Table 5)
In the experiments, 25% to 38% in the “thank you” treatment were not reached at all.
Another 35-40% were only left a voicemail message.
Only 26%-35% of the treatment group were actually thanked.
2. When the people WERE THANKED, they GAVE MORE.
(See Table 6)
When people were reached and thanked with a positive engagement, their donations increased significantly. When people were reached and thanked with a neutral engagement, their donations increased significantly in one experiment and increased non-significantly in the other experiment. When people were just left a voice message their giving increased significantly in one experiment and increased non-significantly in the other experiment. For the roughly 1% who had a negative engagement, their giving increased non-significantly in two specifications, decreased non-significantly in one specification and decreased significantly in one specification.
3. IF the “thank you” HADN’T worked (it did for those who were actually thanked) it would tell us that THIS “thank you” didn’t work, not that “thank you’s” in general DON’T work.
As has been pointed out by others, this was a LOUSY thank you. These were call center workers calling. These were not charity volunteers, not charity employees, not charity board members, not charity donors. In other words, these were hired telemarketers who probably didn’t know or care about the charity. And the call came half a year after the gift. If you wanted to design the worst possible thank you campaign, this would be it. What is shocking is that even in this worst case scenario, it still worked. The only way the statistical effect goes away is if you count people as being thanked because, “We tried to thank them, but didn’t.”
On #2, table 6 only looks at people in the call group. (“In Table 6, we report regressions of predictors of future giving, focusing only on members who were in the call group in either Experiment 1 or Experiment 3.”). It’s not compared with the control of no call. When you do, the effect among neutral responses disappears:
“28.3% of new donors in the thank-you call group made an additional gift within a year, while 28.4% of new donors in the control group did so. The average gift amount, conditional on donating, was $127.22 (SE=$0.40) in the treatment group and $126.24 (SE=$1.03) in the control group. In the national non-profit experiment (Experiment 2, Panel B), 31.0% of donors in the thank-you call group made an additional gift within a year, while 30.9% of donors in the control group did so. The average gift amount,
conditional on donating, was $114.85 (SE=$1.74) in the treatment group and $116.06 (SE=$1.91) in the control group.”
Concerns about #1 and #3 are legitimate – I think we are all agreeing that this is not a good way to thank, with some combination of the wrong who is calling, when they are calling, what they are saying, and whom they are calling. But didn’t want to misstate the conclusions to say those who had a neutral reaction had an uptick in giving. Rather, those who said they didn’t care about the call actually didn’t care about the call.
Yes, that is the comparison they are making except that “call group” is only the “attempted” thank you group not the actual thank you group, so the table shows,
1. If the control group is the people they attempted to contact but didn’t reach then there was a significant increase in donations even with neutral conversations.
However,
2. The analysis actually did not compare those who were thanked (actual conversation) with those in the control group.
3. The analysis compared those in the attempted thank you group (most of whom had no actual conversation) with the non attempted thank you group. In experiment one being in the attempted thank you group had a non significant positive effect as compared with being in the non attempted thank you group. Additionally, within the attempted thank you group actually having a neutral thank you conversation was significantly better than not having a conversation. To actually compare those who received a thank you (nuetral) to those in the control group would combine these two effects. The effect would be positive but I can’t say conclusively that it would be significant positive because that analysis wasn’t run.
So the structure of the analysis is this. We take a type of treatment. We put it in its weakest possible form (as discussed in these comments). We then give one group a 30% risk of treatment. We then find that having a 30% risk of receiving the weakest form of this treatment does not allow us to reject the null hypothesis that such exposure has no effect. We then argue that failing to reject the null hypothesis means that we should accept the null hypothesis. We then argue that accepting the null hypothesis with regard to a 30% risk of exposure of the treatment also means we should accept the null hypothesis with regard to the underlying treatment.
This is the fundamental form of the analysis. It seems to fit this question: Is it possible to so weaken this treatment both in its delivered form and by reducing the risk that those in the treatment group will actually receive the treatment that we will not be able to identify a significant effect of being placed into the treatment risk group? Answering this question does not answer the question: Does this class of treatment work?
I guess things can change, but what about these studies from The Agitator less than a year ago.
http://agitator.thedonorvoice.com/7-easy-retention-wins/
For those who doubt the power of a thank you call, years ago researcher Penelope Burk reported that there is a direct relationship between thank-you calls and the following year’s giving—donors who received thank-you calls gave 40% more the following year.
Chuck Longfield, Blackbaud’s Chief Scientist, has repeated this research many times over and has found similar results. “And yet”, Chuck notes, “in my work with clients, I see very few organizations that consistently make these thank-you calls.”
In Donor-Centered Fundraising 2003, Penelope Burk reports the following test: Board members called to say thank you to every tenth donor within 24 hours of the receipt of a gift made via a direct mail acquisition campaign. If after two or three attempts they couldn’t reach the donor, they left a message. Four months later, each group was re-solicted with each group getting the same new letter. The results she reports are: Test group gave 39% more than the control. After 14 months, the average gift level of the test group was 42% higher than the control (no variations inbetween). She also reported that 4% of the test donors expressed interest during the phone call in “doing something more.” She then goes on to say she heard from “Dozens of charitable organizations” about their success doing this. She strongly recommends testing this approach. She hypothesizes that a delay in calling makes donors suspicious that the call is not just to thank them, but to request another gift. Of course, one test is just one test. And I’ve written about how that call can be totally goofed up here: http://www.ceffect.com/2015/03/19/when-thank-a-thons-go-bad/
Thank (well, there I go … why bother?) goodness the readers of The Agitator are a nuanced lot who understand that NOT thanking is a VERY BAD IDEA! Because that’s what a reductionist reading of this article will lead to, like a grade school game of “pass it along.” > “Hey, did you hear? We don’t have to thank anybody!” It has become part of the canon of APPLIED donor-centricity that “the best thankers win.” And it’s taken forever to begin to see a small crop of really great thankers emerge, led by copywriters like Lisa Sargent and charities like Vida Joven, an orphanage in Tijuana that’s taken thanking to a whole new level. Now, yes, I know, all ye scientists: “no need to thank” is NOT exactly what you were reporting. But that’s what the eager ears of the “wish we could skip that part” crowd WILL hear. Look at your lead analytically: > A new study strongly questions the near-universal assumption that saying “thank you” and showing “impact” is the silver bullet for improving supporter value or increasing second gift conversion. < That's stretching it, right? In fact, the study ISN'T saying that "thank you" is being questioned. It's a PHONED thank you 9 months down the road, hoping to prompt a second gift (a greed-prompted motivation?), that's being questioned. (Or did I get your reporting wrong? I'll download the actual study and see; promise.) Otherwise, as ever, thank you (damn! can't break that habit…) for ALL you do. The Agitator is by far the best data-deliverer in my in-box. I quote your findings at least 3 or 4 times per show. Our questing industry has come so much further, thanks (sh*t!) to your persistence and honesty and deep-diving. Merci (merde!) beaucoup.
And Penelope Burk weighs in: http://www.burksblog.com/just-do-it-no-in-fundraising-you-have-to-do-it-right/?utm_source=Campaigner&utm_campaign=Thursday_December_7_2017_-_1&cmp=1&utm_medium=email “The tests described by Samek and Longfield, however, contain none of those three critical assets. “
Rather than proving that thank-you calls do not work, the Samek-Longfield study simply proves what Penelope Burk has been saying for years: the wrong kind of phone thank-you calls will not be effective. I’d like to see a large test involving a broader variety of nonprofit organizations, calls made within 48 hours of gifts being received, calls made by a high-ranking person from the organization, and calls made well in advance of another appeal (so the thank you and the appeal don’t seem linked). Hyping data and drawing sweeping, inaccurate conclusions is not anymore effective than simply ignoring data. Data is important. However, we need to be careful when drawing conclusions based on data to ensure those conclusions are truly supported.
By the way, my own testing over the years tends to support the research of both Samek-Longfield and Burk. I have found that more immediate thank-you calls are more effective. I’ve also seen that an immediate thank you following a pledge results in a much greater pledge fulfillment rate.
In addition to all the factors quoted, it’s also worth considering the “who” – as in, who is making the thank you call. For years, donors to Best Friends Animal Society would receive a thank you call from one of the organization’s founders (it’s possible they still do). I don’t know if they ever tested against a non-founder, nor do I have any data that suggests it played an important role in retention, but it’s hard to imagine it not having a more beneficial effect than a thank you from some random in a call center reading a prepared script.
Many of the comments here relate to the “who” is making the calls. I am quite familiar with the Burk study and the ideal desire to have board members make the calls. The problem is that the value of calling nearly all donors ($10-25+) has proven quite valuable and the volume is not realistic for in-house staff to call. Professional callers that specialize in relational calls (no hard script and no rush) have done quite well. Side note: I don’t recall if the Burk study had a second test group that used pro callers. Is it empirically proven that board members are better at calls?
Thank you to Anya Samek & Chuck Longfield for spearheading this study and elevating the conversation around thank you calling.
With this as a starting point, we now know that closed-loop non-profits, like Public Television (where the donor is also the beneficiary) & Medical Education and Advocacy non-profits may not want to spend precious resources on thank you calling many months after a gift was given.
I agree with the authors that more testing is needed. From the many positive field-tested results that thank you calls have realized by numerous non-profit organizations, I respectfully recommend that future studies control for the following factors:
Timing: For gratitude to be effectively perceived by the donor, it must be sincere, personal, timely and without any reciprocal intent perceived by the donor. When considering timeliness, look no further than the exhaustively tested thank you receipt. Imagine if the very same group of fundraising professionals, surveyed in the study, were asked: “Ideally, how soon should an organization send out a thank you letter to a donor that gave a gift?” I would imagine that the majority of those folks’ would check the box that says “72 hours”.
As an extra non-philanthropic thought exercise, I did a quick Google search on “thank you notes” and “manners”. I wanted to see what “customary thank you practices” are at play from a different angle. It revealed that job interview notes should be within 24 hours, Christmas gift thanks you’s should be within 1-2 week and wedding cards? 3 months!
If we’re to fine-tune the question, “Do thank you calls work?”, in future studies, it is more than reasonable that call-timing should be a controlled variable in the testing. While the logistics of timely calling may prove much more difficult, the effectiveness question can’t definitively be answered without it.
Non-profit type: While considering communications strategies, there are many ways to “type” donors into buckets. It is commonly acknowledged that not all donors are the same. Specifically, as pertains to this study, donors are as varied as the organizations they support. As such, is it reasonable to assume that a Public Television donor (that receives both programming and premium benefits) will act the same as a donor that is giving to relieve human suffering in their country or across the globe? Or, can we say that the motivators and mindsets at play with and a medical advocacy donor is the mirror image of a donor that supports persecuted Christians or animal advocacy causes?
Before making, or alluding to, any generalized claims around the effectiveness of Thank you calling, I would assure that a diversity of non-profits are represented in the future studies.
Full disclosure and as an FYI: our organization is dedicated to deepening the relationships between each of our partners and their amazing donors. A big piece of our documented success are timely donor thank you calls (within 1-week). Timely calling is so critical to the consistent positive results we’re seeing, we are strongly advocating that our clients NOT engage in our thank you calling services if the donation has aged more 4-weeks.
Yes, Jonathan, this is exactly what I was thinking about. Do we know that the calls analyzed for this study were, in fact, made by “some random in a call center reading a prepared script”? Admittedly, I didn’t read all 62 pages of the study but I didn’t see any clear mention early on about WHO was making these thank you calls.
What terrific comments from everyone! I agree with Penelope Burk’s research and, anecdotally, have found it to work. In spades. The problem is that too many nonprofits simply don’t follow through. They don’t call promptly. The person who calls isn’t passionate, warm and sociable. And the practice isn’t done consistently. It’s going to be really hard to convince me that prompt,, pure, heartfelt thank you calls made within 48 hours of a donor’s gift won’t increase percentage of repeat givers and dollar amount of next gift. I encourage everyone to test this for their own nonprofit. Do a random sampling. Maybe call one in five or one in ten donors who give within a specific dollar range. Do it over a year. Then track retention and upgrade rates over the following year. Persist! (One of the problems with consistency, of course, is staff turnover). Thanks for this thought-provoking article AGDV!
“They don’t call promptly. The person who calls isn’t passionate, warm and sociable. And the practice isn’t done consistently.”
Yes, I agree!!!
I wonder who will even remember an org they gave to 9 months ago? Yes, some will, and I imagine that’s dependant on their level of commitment and many other factors. RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) analysis is a big deal in retail marketing. Like others, I’d love to see the effect of calling within 48 hours. I’d also like to see what was said and who made the call.
But can I, just for a moment, grind my gears?
1. Readers of Chuck’s study might assume that $$$ should determine the success or failure of a thank you phone call. But donors are human beings, not ATMs. “Learning to Say Thank-You: The Role of Donor Acknowledgments” focuses on the positive feelings from being thanked rather than the amount of money given or the number of times a donor gives. IMO, it’s a much more useful study.
2. But do we really need studies on thanking people? My grandfather, Jack Foley, owned a hardware store on Long Island. He built Foley’s Hardware from the ground up by sincerely thanking each and every customer. Thanking was part of his DNA, and it was just the right thing to do. I just hope we’re not waiting for permission from a study to appreciate our amazing donors!
Such a good point John. I have an article on my blog titled “Donor’s Lament: You Didn’t Thank Me Properly.” It kicks off with: Everything I learned about saying “thank you” I learned from:
My mother.
Miss Manners.
Penelope Burk.
A lot to take in from all the comments on this. The manner in which we say thank you is far more important than when. And knowing why your supporters support you is going to help you tailor that thanks. Having worked at an agency group for 10 years that dealt with acquisition and immediately thanking supporters gave me some insight in to this, but it was an agency dealing with high volume, and relying heavily on casual workers who made those calls. So the thanks wasn’t really personal, and the call was made with little to no understanding of why that supporter gave. I then moved to a top 100 charity that had been exclusively working with on agency on acquisition and stewardship of monthly givers. Again, there was no understanding of “why” the donor was giving to the cause, so we started asking some questions at the point of them signing up to a monthly gift. This data gave us insight in to why they chose the charity, and how they would like to be communicated with and how frequently. This meant communications could be tailored across 4 segments and thank you calls could be made by staff and volunteers from the charity. It was not scripted. The increase in retention rose by 15% over three years, and the net income doubled over 5 years. I then moved to a very small charity, where thank you calls had never been made. We started making them, with all staff engaging the donor in their role at the charity, and wanting to understand why the donor supported the cause. These were then extended in to thank you drop-in days, where all supporters were invited to drop-in and meet us in person. Response rate grew by 18% to the mail appeals, and income by 28%. To me this is all about how you thank, and understanding why your supporters give. People remember how you make them feel. If you make them feel understood and valued then they will give to you again.
Wonderful discussion!
Like Claire, I agree with Penelope Burk’s — and Dr. Adrian Sargeant’s — research on this topic. And I’ve found it to work for both my clients and our students (primarily small to mid-sized nonprofit organizations). Not to mention on myself as a donor to hundreds of nonprofits (and I can count the number of thank you calls I’ve received on one hand). For crying out loud, donors are smart — a call from a frickin’ CALL CENTER months after the gift??? Do you think they don’t realize what’s going on? How is that in any way authentic??? And wasn’t this study conducted primarily with public television stations? Those are transactional donors to begin with for the most part.
Quite possibly the best thing a small nonprofit can do is to incorporate a system of flagging new donors to receive an immediate, genuine thank you call following that first gift, preferably from the ED herself.
You can’t manufacture (or outsource) gratitude. You can’t manufacture genuine caring. You can’t manufacture integrity. And you can’t fake doing the right thing. Quit trying to take short cuts.