Here are three additional concerns/opportunities that we raised in 2019 –topics that also happened to be among the most popular with Agitator readers.

If acted upon, each one holds substantial promise for a brighter 2020 provided they’re acted upon.

Donor Identity.  It won’t surprise frequent Agitator readers that in a study by Donor Graphics for One & All  on why donors give,  the #1 reason  was “to support a cause that has affected me or a loved one,” the chosen answer of 23% of respondents.

This was #1 across age groups except for those 21 and under.  This is potentially because younger people have not yet had enough time to be impacted by some of the issues our nonprofits address.

It’s telling that donor identity – being personally affected by an issue plus “feel a connection to a cause or community” – covers over a third of all donors where their primary reason to give is concerned.

The Agitator has usually talked about identity in the context of the reason donors choose among organizations (for example, the University of Kent’s study about how donors choose among nonprofits and how donors will place their own identity over the nonprofit’s effectiveness).

The DonorGraphics study goes a bit further – it says that not only is identity a reason for donors to choose a nonprofit, but it is also a compelling reason why people begin donating in the first place.  Powerful stuff.

If you’re looking for some real breakthrough action in 2020 I recommend you dive into the topic of donor identity and put it to work.  It’s really not that difficult.  And you’ll find the results of your effort pay huge dividends.

Just go to the Agitator Archives click on the “Donor Identity” category and from Riding The Unicorn to Instinct and Conventional Wisdom Are No Longer Enough you’ll find 111 posts that touch on this vital subject.

Donor Feedback.  Nick, in his August post, Donors At the Break Point quoted this un-retouched donor comment:

“DO NOT SEND ME ANYTHING IN THE MAIL.  PLEASE DO NOT.  EVERY SINGLE TIME I DONATE I ALWAYS GET MAILERS.  STOPPPPP!!!”

As Nick, in his quintessential tongue-in-cheek manner noted, “All caps and the sheer number of Ps and exclamation points means I’m thinking you don’t need an Artificial Intelligence to figure out this person is near, at, or passed their break point.”

Tragically, most nonprofits are blindly or deafeningly unaware of their donors’ feelings and frustrations because they simply don’t collect feedback.  Shame.

What type of true human relationship works only via one-way communication?  Certainly not any lasting relationship.  Yet hundreds of fundraisers who profess being “donor centric” haven’t lifted a finger or devoted a dime to seeking –let alone acting on—donor feedback.

Feedback is a Bonanza-In-Waiting.  From improving your donation pages, to addressing the terminal boredom of your donors, to simply showing them respect, by failing to methodically seek feedback you’re inadvertently pushing driving your donors away.

There’s a good reason the commercial world spends billions on those surveys you receive after each airline flight or hotel stay or interaction with a customer service rep. Feedback – even the mere act of seeking it even if the donor doesn’t respond—breeds loyalty.

In a series entitled Feedback Week we covered the manifold advantages and uses of donor feedback.  ( Here,here, here, and here.) And in the Agitator Archives you’ll find 40+ more posts on the importance and “how to’s” of donor feedback.

If you’re looking for a ‘silver bullet’ example of feedback in a much earlier post titled Better Than Fundraising I cited one:

In a test involving only a single instance of collecting donor feedback here’s the performance 6 months after the test:

• Contributions/purchase of additional offers increased 3 times over the control group.
• There was a 50% decrease in attrition; and,
• A 35% increase in net income from the test group over the control group.

As the chart notes, “If ever there was ever a ‘silver bullet’ this is it.”

Finally, feel free to talk to Kevin Schulman or Josh Whichard at DonorVoice for details on their Feedback Platform. And for the DIYers among our readers they also provide a Free Forever Feedback widget.

Donor Upgrading.  So many of our donor upgrade strategies amount to this: asking that same person for a different amount or in a different way.  Circle the middle value.  Put some social proof to it (“Most of our donors are giving this amount”).  Localize that social proof. (“Donors in the Smallville area are giving an average of $77).   Reverse the ask string order, knowing that the first value has the most pull.  And, on and on.

Of course, we’re fans of testing all these tactics.  It’s great when you can increase donations for no additional cost. But we also need to understand that donors largely lock in their giving if they make their second gift at the same amount.  De Bruyn and Prokopec looked at this phenomenon in their 2013 paper on ask strings.  They found the best value to anchor your ask string to for first-time donors was anything but their previous donation – higher and you increase average gift; lower and you increase response rate.  But the best value to anchor your ask string for repeat donors is what they’d given before.

What else can we do to increase average gifts beyond offering the pale simulations of additional value that are premiums and matching gift campaigns?

One is to focus on the individual’s impact, rather than the collective one.  As Dr. Kiki Koutmeridou said in our Ask a Behavioral Scientist section:

“Major donors are more interested in the difference they will personally make, rather than the usual “together we can…” pitch. Charities should emphasize their personal impact and adapt the language and offers accordingly to increase conversion.

To invert this somewhat, people are more inclined to make major gifts (whatever that means for them) if they have a personal impact.

Another is to increase the value of that impact to the donor by making it more personal.  As we preach with identity, donors choose and stick with those nonprofits that can address not who the charity is, but who the donor is as it relates to the cause.  If I know you are a disease sufferer or cat person or a mountains person or were treated at our hospital or knew hunger once or someone whose family member has an intellectual disability or… or… or… and I can tailor the reason to give to that identity and the things you want to support, my charity is going to be more valuable to you.

In short, learning about donors and acting on that knowledge can make you more valuable to them.

We can also be a resource to our donors, giving them ever more value.  We’ve posted on the value of the information exchange – giving to get – as a way of acquiring new constituents to our organizations.  But it does not stop there.  If you are continuing to deliver value during the donors’ life with you, they will increase their giving.  Reciprocity scales.

In these ways, we can change our donors’ behaviors not just once but permanently.  Here, as everywhere else, you get out what you put in.

For a detailed discussion of upgrading and a myriad of testing ideas for ask strings I recommend a copy of Nick’s 29 page—and free–The Science of Ask Strings.

And for those into predictive analytics and machine learning you might want to try OptimizeAsk™ provided by our sister company DonorTrends.  Drawing upon a wide range of academic research, proven techniques and machine learning they’ve designed a system of predictive analytics for creating ask strings for each individual donor.

For the cost of 1 penny – that’s right, one cent— per donor record they’ll identify those donors most likely to upgrade.  In addition, they’ll provide custom tailored ask strings/suggested asking amounts for each donor.

Best of all the process is fast the DonorTrends team will provide personal guidance and suggest the most efficient upgrade strategies.  You can find out more about OptimizeAsk™here.

Onward into 2020…

I believe each of the topics we’ve covered in this year’s review deserves as much attention and action as our sector can muster.  The HUGE issues – empowering and rewarding more women, improving training and professionalization have to be tackled in a united, sector-wide manner.

Others – techniques involving data, donor identity, upgrading and feedback—can be handled by each of us in our own organizations. Not only are they inexpensive and relatively easy to implement they’ll produce solid, growth-oriented results.

So, let’s get busy for a Happier 2020.

Roger