They say love is blind.  It’s actually worse than that.  If you were blind, you would know not to trust your eyes.

Love distorts.  It makes you see things that aren’t there.  It enhances positives and turns negatives into charming quirks.

That’s why you want donors who are fully committed to you, who love you, warts and all.  This type of commitment is its own reality distortion field.

Take the idea of effectiveness.  If people are giving to you because you are the most effective on your fatally flawed overhead ratio, for example, you are the fastest gun in the West – everyone who thinks they are faster will take their shot at you.  And eventually you’ll lose.

But if you base your appeal on how much people love you and love giving to you, that’s something sustainable.

That’s not just me talking.  Researchers looked at effectiveness information.  They found that people would always pick to donate to the most effective charity… if they had no other information.

Then they gave them a variety of causes.  And people consistently picked their own favorite causes over the most effective ones.  As one of the researchers commented “they care about it [effectiveness], but not enough to sacrifice their own personal preferences when choosing a cause to support.”

Similarly, in talking to donors, the University of Kent found the top two reasons donors gave to the charities they do were “Donors’ tastes, preferences and passions” and “Donors’ personal and professional backgrounds.”

People’s commitment to you can distort their desire to donate to the most effective nonprofit.  Effective altruists call this a tragedy, saying all money should flow to the most effective.  I personally think a world where people enjoy their giving is one in which people give more, so why try to stamp out these preferences.

This idea, though, is a different way of looking at donors.  So often, when we have the chance to choose between wide and deep, we choose wide.  We email everyone.  We add an appeal when net revenue is down.  Our list rental strategy is “people who give to other nonprofits.”

At the Agitator and DonorVoice we argues for depth: for getting and creating rabid fans.  This starts with an identity – whatever that core identity is for you.  This is the American Hangnail Society soliciting those who suffer from the disease (yes, this is anonymized).  It’s the people who care about someone who was a service recipient.  It’s the health care professionals for Make a Wish.  It’s those tastes, preferences, passions, and backgrounds that University of Kent was talking about.

Then, it’s finding out what those audiences need to make them committed–  and giving it to them.

This is a different reality for most fundraisers.  It means coming out of the spreadsheet and the message calendar and looking at core reasons for giving.

But the good news is that by doing this you can create a different reality for your donors: one where your successes are shared and your failings are forgiven.  That’s a reality distortion field we can all get behind.

Nick