Wear Your Donor’s Shoes
Does your nonprofit have fundraising rules that would bewilder your average donor?
From Gayle Gifford at Cause & Effect, here’s the kind of story about donor-nonprofit mis-interaction that makes The Agitator’s hair curl.
To sum her story up:
She the would-be donor: ‘Please let me give now!’
The nonprofit: ‘You can’t. You can’t.’
And then, about eight months later, the nonprofit re-contacts her with a friendly reminder (I paraphrase): ‘In case you forgot … You didn’t. You didn’t.’
Please tell me your organization wouldn’t do this!
Before you do anything, draft anything, design anything … wear you donor’s shoes.
Tom
P.S. One way of looking at Gayle’s Kiva example is that they were trying inappropriately to ‘convert’ her from an ‘institutional’ donor (the kind most nonprofits would love to have) to a ‘microloan donor’. The next two Agitator posts get into a squabble about what constitutes acceptable ‘donor conversion’. Get ready for fisticuffs!
4 responses to “Wear Your Donor’s Shoes”
Behavioral Science Q & A
Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]
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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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Spot on. Instead of deciding what to offer our supporters we could ask them what they’d like. Walking a mile in their moccasins as the saying goes means we will better understand what they are trying to do, wanting to make a difference and be able to empathise with their view of what we look like! It might be a bit scary but the insight is priceless.
Thanks, guys, for sharing this story. I’d love to hear from your readers about other internal rules they’ve encountered that interfere with developing strong donor relationships.
I’ve had the experience of giving a donation that exceeded our membership cost and because we didn’t turn it in with our membership paperwork we weren’t listed as organizational members. It wasn’t a HUGE deal, but left a bad taste. Made it less fun to give a donation to a fun organization we liked.
Also had to fight the battle that all employee donors be included in our employee giving society, not just the ones who give payroll deductions. They don’t make the distinction of how they give, so why should we? To have someone give $100 as a one time gift and not be listed, when other employees gave less than $25 over the course of a year through deductions and be listed in publications, entered in drawings, etc..just didn’t make sense.
Katie,
Two more examples of the crazy rules that I was talking about.
Gayle