Alan Kurdi’s 3yr old, lifeless body washed up on the beach after the boat carrying him from the Syrian civil war capsized.  NGO’s big and small reported a massive surge in donations even though the Syrian civil war had been raging for several years with thousands of deaths and millions of refugees.

Baby Jessica fell into a narrow well in her aunt’s backyard.  The rescue operation, lasted 58 hours,  with millions glued to their TVs. Hundreds of thousands of dollars poured in from around the world.  The heart wrenching reality is that millions of kids under 5 die every year from hunger or disease.

These and other examples underscore Mother Teresa’s observation, “”If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”   Academics dub this the identifiable victim effect and they are fascinated by it.  It’s a very common, well-worn “bias” trotted out by many a fundraiser or consultant as ammunition against program staff mucking up an appeal with numbing statistics about the scope of the problem.

And far be it from me to correct a nun, much less one who’s been canonized but the Agitator must agitate and so it bears asking, was Mother Teresa right?   Yes and no.

There are (at least) 41 academic studies, including live field experiments testing the identifiable victim effect comparing various flavors of identifiable victim against a control with no identifiable victim.  On whole, the effect is there but small.  The juice might be worth the squeeze if you don’t squeeze too hard.

But across the 41 studies many found no effect and some even found a negative one.  What accounts for the differences is where you earn your money.  Here are the cases where it matters, a bit.

• Kid as victim (adults, not so much)
• Show picture and other identifiers (name, age)
• Victim is widely considered to bear no responsibility for their situation.  Kids and hunger clearly abide by this. An adult with Type 2 diabetes would not.

Here’s the DonorVoice two-fold problem and solution with identifiable victim testing.

1. Problem:  Those testing this, and especially the academics, take the effect too literally.  I’ve seen test mailings where the details about the child are as emotionally moving as a milk carton from the 80’s.
   • Solution:  Identifying the victim isn’t enough, tell the story.  The entire story…(see next pt.)
2. Problem:  Speaking of emotion, the research is crystal clear on one point.  A single victim promotes more sympathy and empathy but also more distress and anxiety.
   • Solution: Nobody gives because you make them feel sympathy or distress.  They give because they think doing so will make them feel better.  Only showing the victim is like trying to adjust the lights with the dimmer switch but forgetting to turn the light on first.  You must tell the full story from victim and circumstance to intervention to improved outcomes.  I feel sad initially but see the path to feeling better – completing the story for someone else by donating.

None of the testing I’ve seen applies what we know showing the victim does (invokes emotion) combined with what gets people to donate – they are not the same thing.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the third and perhaps biggest fail, there is no one size fits all for properly applying the identifiable victim effect.

One very underexplored area is matching story and victim to reader Identity.   There’s been some limited testing of Nationality as Identity and that doesn’t hit the mark.  And of course, Personality trait tailoring.  People high in Openness are likely more receptive to size and scope of problem factoids, those high in Agreeableness are more likely to find those details psychologically numbing.

Kevin