queer ideas

The impact of 'Social Information' on giving behaviour

First off, let's define what we mean by Social Information. Put simply, it's just a name for knowing what other people are up to.

But I don't mean gossiping about Katie and Peter. It's more about the economic impact of knowing what's going on. I suppose you could call it market intelligence.

For example, if you are buying a second-hand car you need to know the going rate. You can check out newspaper classified ads or Glass's Guide. Both will show you what your chosen model is currently selling for and allow you to work out what is a fair price.

It's the same with salaries. By looking at job ads, you can work out if you are under or over-paid.

But it's not just related to commercial activity. It also impacts on fundraising.

Anyone who did a sponsored swim or walk whilst at school will understand the concept.  You get your mum or dad to sponsor you for a hefty amount at the top of the form in the hope that other people will match their gift. Some people might ignore this type of prompt but those that are influenced by it make it a worthwhile technique.

What's important however, is how it can be used for wider fundraising activity.

Rachel Croson and Jen Shang from Indiana University carried out a fundraising experiment that tried to measure it's impact when they examined the philanthropic effect of sharing information on donation levels.

It focussed on a US public radio station that had three fundraising drives a year during which DJs and volunteers asked for donations and proposed contribution levels that ranged from $50 for basic membership on up to $2,500.

Because their range of recommended donations was so wide, donors had little idea of what the "right" contribution level might be.

So Croson and Shang set out to see if they could influence donors in their choice. They wanted to find out if donors who were told how much another donor had given would donate more than those who had no benchmark to go by.

They focused on three levels of giving...

• $75
• $180
• $300

When a donor called in, the person manning the phone told the caller that

"We had another member who contributed $X."

(With X being randomly assigned as one of the three chosen amounts.)

The results were then compared to calls from a control group who were told nothing.

They found a strong uplift, particularly for the $300 test segment.

"Those members who were told that another donor had contributed $300 gave an average contribution of $119.70, while those in the same group who were not told about the other donor's contribution (the control group) gave $106.72. This $13 difference "would translate into a 12% increase in revenue for the station had all callers been offered the $300 social information."

The impact didn't stop there. The strategy appeared to have a long-term effect. Whereas the average gift of the control group in the subsequent year to the test was just $86.11, those who received the social information gave in a range from $93.97 to $121.13.

Because the influence of sharing the $300 social information had been so great, they decided to test even higher amounts, comparing $600 and $1,000 prompts.

They found that mentioning

• $600 generated an average gift of $172
• $1,000 generated an average gift of $142

What they discovered was a "boundary effect". The suggested donation had to be appropriate to the financial position of the donor otherwise it simply wasn't relevant. If the prompt was too high it simply placed the donors back in the position of making their own choice.

Croson and Shang have also tested this relevance theory by adding details of the sex of the previous contributor in their telephone conversations. They found that women, for example, give more if they are told it was a women who had made the large gift. As they explain...

"This result is again consistent with the social conformity story. If another person like me gave a particular amount, then it is more likely to be relevant or appropriate than if another person unlike me gave that amount."

Though many of us might have used a similar approach in street or telephone fundraising calls, i.e...

"Many people are choosing to give £10 a month. Would that be a suitable amount for you?"

I'd question whether we are being as intelligent with the use of social information as we could be. Croson and Shang also found the approach worked in appeal letters. At Bluefrog we are placing far more emphasis on the use of social information in the development of our creative work and in the construction of our targetting plans.

As with every aspect of fundraising, the more focus we can place on the donor – showing them both the impact they have on our work and how their gift relates to those of other donors – the more effective we will be.

Guest post: Adam Rothwell on Face to Face fundraising

London councils are apparently waging a concerted, “malicious” campaign against F2F – or so says the PFRA, who seem to believe that the councils would like nothing more than to clear the streets of chuggers, and – as a result – are happy to see the poor and needy of the world suffer.

The PRFA position is that Chuggers help charities do good work, and so those who campaign against them are morally wrong.
 
It’s an argument that I can’t accept.
 
The PFRA’s defence of chuggers follows a standard line that’s also been adopted by the IOF and many fundraising professionals. “Come off it,” they say, “the public doesn’t give spontaneously – and by using chuggers we can recruit donors who wouldn’t otherwise give.”
 
It’s hard for me to argue with that, so I won’t. But I will argue that this defence misses the point. Although chuggers might rake in the cash, they do so to the detriment of the entire voluntary sector, but in ways that are difficult to measure. Simply, if ordinary people dislike chuggers – over which there’s no disagreement – this means that the public face of charity is, for many, that of a rude, ill-trained, tabard-wearing, pain in the neck. Charities are, in other words, destroying their sainted image, possibly irreparably. And all because some F2F agency offers them a ‘guaranteed return’.
 
For the long-term health of the sector, it’s vital that charities recognize the negative side-effects of F2F, and have a proper debate about the unintended consequences of the technique. But this important debate hasn’t happened. Perhaps because of the PFRA
 
It would appear that the PFRA response to criticism is to default to angry mode. So, the London councils are being “malicious,” and have given the PFRA the “cold shoulder” in negotiations. I experienced this approach myself when I appeared on a radio phone-in on F2F last November.

I think the PFRA’s response under attack is counterproductive. It makes the sector seem prickly and defensive, and unable to take even the mildest criticism. It shows no sympathy for people with justifiable complaints against F2F, and accuses those who complain of being either misinformed or even morally unreliable.

The issues around F2F are complex. Yes, it raises cash. But it also causes side-effects that are in chronic need of investigation. And, all the while, the sector’s reputation continues to suffer. The sector’s response to this criticism needs to be measured, and it needs to be constructive. It needs to engage with the legitimate concerns of the irritated public. And it needs to welcome debate.

Adam Rothwell

Note: This is a guest post from Adam Rothwell formerly of Intelligent Giving. His views do not necessarily reflect mine, but I have grown to value what he adds to the various debates within the sector.

Should we give to Face to Face recruiters?

The Observer asked an interesting Question of the week on Sunday – Should we give to street chuggers?

Caroline Howe, policy and codes of practice manager at the Institute of Fundraising was the supplying the yes answer, the basis of her argument being you can simply say "No" if you don't want to give. Richard Marsh, the new interim director at Intelligent Giving came down on the no side, accepting that Face to Face recruitment is effective but asking if this is enough? He suggested that the sector should be more innovative, looking for a donor-friendly replacement to the technique.

There are a fair number of comments from readers pointing out why they don't like it and I decided to add my own view.

Unlike Richard, I think there is a place for Face to Face. But I strongly agree – as I have pointed out on this blog before – that our most important task is to improve all stages of the donor / charity experience.

My comment from The Observer follows...

Sadly, few people spontaneously decide to give to charity. The old adage, "Don't ask. Don't get" is true. The charity that stops asking will fail the cause it was set up to serve.

F2F is popular as a means to recruit new donors because it has a fixed price. A charity is charged a set fee for every donor that is recruited. Because of this, risk is reduced (even taking into account donors that stop giving).

It could be argued that because of this guarantee, F2F is the most ethical way for a charity to spend their fundraising budget. £XX is spent to bring X new donors on board.

This is in direct contrast with traditional advertising, for example, in the pages of The Guardian. The vast, vast majority of ads that we see in the paper (and in other publications and on TV) are paid for. If a charity invests £10,000 in an advertising campaign, there is no guarantee that a single penny will ever be returned.

We must also remember that in addition to the cost of buying media space, a charity must also factor in the cost of developing and testing different advertisements. It is the same for the production of appeal letters. Only this time it is creative agencies, the Post Office and printers who receive the bulk of the charities money.

Charities are constantly trying to find the most cost-effective way of raising funds. F2F is used because it is often cheaper and more effective than other techniques for recruiting new donors.

But I'd question whether it is as cheap as retaining current donors – and this is the crux of the matter. Richard points out that cancellation rates from F2F are high. But they are high from other recruitment methods as well. Research back in 2000 showed that 50% of all people who gave a cash gift to a charity, never gave to them again.

The emphasis for charities must be retention. Results show that the standard approach of appeals and magazines do not work for many people. Research shows that far too many of us are disappointed with our relationship with charities.

Charities must change their emphasis from recruitment to improving retention. There is no point in coming up with more efficient ways to fill a bucket if it is full of holes.

So in answer to your question, I'd say yes, we should give to street fundraisers. But we should also demand that the charities we support give us real insight and involvement in to the work that our gifts make happen.

You don't choose donors, they choose you

Choice is an important concept in fundraising – donors love it.

When we offer choice through simple techniques such as shopping lists in appeals or more complex devices such as post-recruitment questionnaires that give donors control over the communications they receive, we build loyalty and generate more gifts.

There is a piece of research that helps explain why this occurs. Harbaugh, Mayer and Burghart of the University of Oregon undertook an experiment where they gave 19 young women $100 each and then confronted them with a selection of different scenarios...

• The money would be taken away with no explanation.
• The money would be taken away and given to a local charity.
• They were given the choice of keeping the money or donating it to charity.
• They could keep the money, and an extra gift would be given to charity.

All this happened whilst they were in an MRI scanner – a machine that mapped their brain activity whilst the scenarios were being considered.

The researchers found they could divide their subjects into two different types depending on brain activity.  They defined these two groups as egoists and altruists depending on whether their brain responded more to keeping the money for themselves or more to donating the money to charity.

Those whose scans showed a positive response to money going to the charity rather than to themselves were about twice as likely to give money voluntarily.

People obviously didn't like money being taken away with no reason, but if the money was given to the charity, the parts of the brain that became activated were those that respond to basic rewards such as sweets, food or positive social contact.

When the decision to give to charity was completely voluntary, these reward areas produced increased amounts of activity.

In short, active giving produced an extra neural benefit over passive giving. Something that both economists and fundraisers might describe as a "warm glow".

Sadly when giving was voluntary, the charity got 10% less than when a percentage of it was "taxed".

You don't need an MRI scanner in your fundraising department to appreciate what this means – if a donor feels coerced into giving, the rewards they feel are minimal and the relationship is off to a rotten start.

We only have to look at attrition rates associated with different types of recruitment activity to see what happens when there is a sniff of coercion in recruitment – cancellations go crazy.

Face to face, cold telephone and even TV have very high attrition rates compared to the emotionally cooler recruitment techniques such as direct mail and press ads.

One of the ways of managing the high attrition rates delivered by some recruitment channels is by demonstrating just how important the donor is to your work immediately after recruitment. And then giving them complete control over the relationship. If we do this, we help activate that "warm glow", which is just what the altruists are looking for. As a direct result, we stem attrition.

Bluefrog's head of creative, Aline Reed has recently posted a piece on her blog, Bluefrog Creative, about how we are tackling Face to Face attrition for Care International. It's early days, but by offering donors insight into the impact they are having and giving them control over the relationship, we are seeing some rather pleasing figures. You can see this work by clicking here.

As Aline explains, we aim to publish the outcome of this test along with some other research at a major presentation in London on the 13th of November. As usual with Bluefrog research, there will be no charge for attendance or our report. Email me at mark@bluefroglondon.com, if you'd like additional information or to be added to the guest list.

In the meantime, If you'd like to brush up on where you are likely to find things like the striatum (where all the fun happens), I  suggest you watch this short video to get you up to speed on all things brain related.

How to raise money from face to face recruiters

Next time you are stopped in the street and asked if you have "a few minutes to spare for charity", try this approach and see if you can turn their request for help into a donation for your own organisation.

When you click on the link below, you'll hear a recording of a discussion between a face to face recruiter and a "potential" donor.

Raising funds on the street

If you like this approach, you can get a whole range of similar tips here.

The problem of face to face attrition

A few weeks ago I was preparing to give a presentation at the PFRA AGM. With a few days notice, I was told I wouldn't be needed. I'm not actually sure why it was decided I wouldn't be required. I've heard that it was in response to complaints that I would be conducting a pitch rather than giving a considered view on what was right and wrong about face to face recruitment.

The only thing I know for sure is that those people who complained are wrong.

I've always firmly believed that the whole sector is improved if we share our learning. That's one of the reasons why all the Bluefrog research (which has cost many tens of thousands of pounds) is available free of charge either through the main Bluefrog site or here on queerideas.

And though the AGM saw some very positive figures being announced with 680,000 donors recruited in the year ending March 2009 – up 16% on the previous year, there have been more recent press releases that shows the other side of the story – attrition. The projections that we will see first year attrition rates of between 55 and 57% perhaps need double checking.

I've seen the actual data from a large number of campaigns and can say that the actual figures will be at least ten percent higher with real attrition for many organisations now standing between 65 and 70% in year one. And yes, door to door attrition is better - but I haven't seen any results as good as this report would suggest.

The fact is that attrition rates have been continuing to rise year on year - recession or no recession. And though it is likely that the recent economic figures have had an impact, they are not the real problem.

When in doubt about any matter, I normally turn to Adrian Sargeant for an answer and way back in 2003, he pointed us in the right direction.

Working with Elaine Jay, they surveyed 657 active and 431 lapsed face to face recruited donors (from a sample of 4,846) and found that people were relatively happy with the recruitment process. They made the point that it is possible to speculate that...

"...whatever reason individuals might give for lapsing, it has little to do with the perceived quality of the recruitment process".

In order to cast a little light on what the actual reasons might be, Sargeant and Jay looked at the ongoing donor / charity relationship and asked respondents how they felt their charity performed on a number of areas relating to supporter service.

This revealed that charities were scored lowest on two areas that in a commercial setting would be corporate suicide...

• making me feel important
• demonstrating that they care about me

I should point out that their research also indicated that donors said that they didn't rate these components of the relationship as being important. So maybe it is something that we can ignore.

Or maybe not...

The most recent research undertaken by Professor Sargeant shows something very different. By making welcome calls, personalising communications and customising newsletters for face to face recruited donors – in short, using standard fundraising techniques that are proven to increase income and loyalty – their retention can be improved.

In the face of this, I don't understand why so much blame for attrition has been focussed on the recruitment process. On one hand it has benefitted charities, resulting in ever larger replacement guarantees being offered, but the downside has been that the motivation for charities to develop retention programmes for these supporters has been reduced.

The result has been that traditional charity communications have been shoe-horned into service. Sometimes magazines and other communications have been re-designed and re-written to make them more attractive to younger donors, at other times specific communications have been developed for sending to supporters.

In hindsight, perhaps more time should have been given to determining whether these were the appropriate vehicles in the first place, particularly when you consider the problem we were trying to tackle - creating engagement.

I've written before about recruitment techniques that don't allow a donor the necessary time to engage with the cause – or the organisation – and the toxic effect that this can have on a database if the right communication strategy isn't implemented.

To create an effective solution,  we need to prioritise the donor's needs, placing their desires and their actions at the centre of the emerging dialogue. Our first step is to increase the personalisation in our fundraising materials (just as Adrian Sargeant points out in his recent research).

But we also have to look at when we act. The majority of cancellations happen very quickly. Our analysis shows that the real danger period is the first few months. The number of no pays and cancellations seen in this period regularly outweigh those seen during the remainder of the year. Our goal must be to engage immediately.

The materials given out at recruitment must drive this process. Simply giving out information on what your charity does (however well designed) or thank you pieces (no matter how fun or nice they are to have) or even free gifts is completely missing the point.

If our goal is to engage, those materials must have one goal – to pull the charity and the donor together.

By that, I mean they must start the donor on their journey of support before they have even got back to their office or home and had a chance to cancel.

And our follow up communications (and that is in the plural on purpose) – whether they are by mail, phone or web – must focus on the exact point where that donor is on the journey.

So what are the key needs we need to tackle? I've posted before about Bluefrog's work on identifying donor needs and would recommend you check out this post if you haven't read it before.

In it you'll see that there are 4 needs that we have to address.

1. The desire to help - show donors what their gift has helped achieve.

Wildlife Direct have a fantastic approach to donor centric reporting back. This piece on their gorilla doctors in Rwanda is right at the cutting edge of web based engagement. Click through and you'll see how Gorillas have been freed from hunter's snares, meet a baby called Umoja who had his life saved through surgery and read about and see others who were helped through different types of medical intervention.

Alongside this report, there is a fantastic opportunity to help by giving monthly or one-off donations that can fund anything from the support of a gorilla orphan to the purchase of an anesthetic dart.

2. Overcome helplessness – give donors a chance to do something that, as an individual, they couldn't even dream about.

The size of a problem can overwhelm individuals. Talking about huge numbers of people living in poverty or who might die from diseases like cancer can simply leave people thinking their ten or twenty pounds is going to make no difference at all – so why give it?

It's why we use shopping lists. It's not just about prompting a gift, it also helps make a gift tangible in a donors mind.

If I give $20 to buy an anesthetic dart, I immediately imagine it flying through the air, hitting and anesthetising a gorilla, making me part of the process of saving his or her life.

3. Help donors grow – whether you are educating or offering a donor increased self-esteem, your goal should be to give the donor a chance to become the person they want to be through their support of your charity.

Effective information provision isn't just down to telling stories in a magazine. If it was, we wouldn't have the attrition problem we see to day.

It's about providing that information in a way that works for the donor - making them feel part of the organisation and recognised for their role. A magazine, for example, shows a donor they are one of many, whereas a letter or highly personalised report, directly demonstrates that the donor is worthy of special treatment. I'm sure you can guess which is more effective at tackling cancellation rates.

Looking at the gorilla doctors page again you'll see that recent donors are thanked by being named on the page and through comments they can communicate with the medical team and each other. It's a simple technique that offers status, information and involvement.

4. Engagement – This describes the entertainment factor - because every aspect of a donor needs based strategy is about generating engagement. This is about gaining and keeping their attention.

By taking care over the way we write our copy, use and share photographs and show video we can make our work exciting, involving and life-changing. Or alternatively we can show our charity to be dull, self-centred and uninspiring.

The donor will let us know what they think of our fundraising and communication materials by voting through their wallets, purses and direct debit cancellation buttons.

Finding out more

At Bluefrog, we are currently carrying out some tests on some very new approaches to tackling attrition based on much of what I've shared in this post. We'll be making these available to charities at a presentation in London later this year. If you'd like to come along, please let me know by emailing me at mark@bluefroglondon.com and I'll make sure that you receive an invitation. I can assure you it will be information that will make your fundraising better and will most definitely not be a pitch.

Move along please. There's nothing to see here

As most regular readers know, I've endeavored to get at least one juicy post up at the weekend.

Unfortunately I've failed this week. I'm having a few days off and had to spend most of this weekend doing real work.

I'm half way through writing a post on face-to-face attrition and how we will reduce it. It relates to things like this, this and most recently, this. I don't want to rush it so have decided to finish it when I return.

I'll try and do the odd tweet (which you can read here) if I find anything interesting to share, but otherwise see you all at the IOF awards or back here for how we finally make face-to-face as good at retaining donors as it is at recruiting them.

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Do your supporters look like nails, carrots or beetroots?

Recency, Frequency and Value are the mainstays of a successful segmentation strategy. 

You can use values, geo-demographics, regression and even snake oil to try and improve your targeting of appeals,  but at the end of the day, the long-term use of RFV can make the biggest difference to both expenditure and income.

It's effective because it helps identify patterns of behaviour, rather than simply describing the person who is giving. 

And it's behaviour that's the best predictor of how a donor will respond to an appeal.  Knowing that someone has given the second prompt amount on your last three Christmas mailings is  worth much more than knowing that they are a member of the National Trust, living in a £450,000 house in Sevenoaks who nips off to church each Sunday after reading The Observer in bed.

And of all aspects of donor behaviour, recency is probably the most powerful indicator of potential. It's also a great way to measure the health of your donor file.

A while ago, working with Bluefrog's old head of data planning, Adam Waller, we created three recency based profile snapshots to help demonstrate typical patterns of support to help charities develop strategies to increase their income.

  

I've reproduced them here in a simplified form. Just to make them look visually attractive, each profile is based on a history of twenty appeals. The top of the chart is when the supporters were first recruited. The present month is at the bottom. I've kept equal numbers of male and female supporters. In reality, however, most files will contain more female supporters.

Nails

Having a nail shaped supporter file isn't great. The majority of donors in this profile give just the once and that's it. You are left with a small core that donate whilst the majority simply clutter up your database.

The problem you face with nail donors, is a lack of engagement. You have their name, contact details and even a gift, but considering them a supporter is simply delusional.

Nail shaped donor profiles are often acquired via a dependence on highly emotional recruitment channels such as face to face or TV.  When these supporters are moved to a standard donor programme without any regard to their specific needs, many of them might as well be deleted as it would save wasting money on supporter magazines and warm appeals that will simply be thrown away. 

 

If you are not going to put hard marketing effort into tackling the Bergstrom Effect, the best hope for someone on a nail shaped file is that they give via a direct debit which they are too busy to cancel. 

You engage a nail shaped file by:

• Recognising current donor development communications aren't working.
• Moving the focus in communications from talking about the charity to talking about the donor.
• Not guessing what your donors need. Ask them.
• Remembering what your donors want and showing them you have listened to them.
• Acting very quickly in cementing the relationship by showing them what their gifts have done. Each day without reinforcing that they have done the right thing increases your failure rate.

Carrots

The Carrot typifies the shape of the average cash file. Adrian Sargeant did a study a few years ago that showed that 50% of cash supporters never gave a second gift. The charity files he looked at slowly shrunk to the point that just 8% of donors were still giving after 5 years. It's a pattern that we are finding demonstrated in cash files to the present day.

Carrot shaped donor profiles decline slower that nails, but they still decline. They are more likely to be acquired via direct mail and press, but they still need to be engaged before they develop a level of commitment to your charity. 

 

The task for a fundraiser working with a carrot shaped file is also to move donors through a communication programme designed to build a sense of involvement with the charity. 

The tactics for managing a carrot shaped file are similar to those for nail shaped files. In this case however, you have more time to act. Though these donors are not your greatest advocates, good, well targeted, relevant appeals will work. These donors are just the sort of people who might enjoy supporting you. They simply don't know it yet. By implementing a donor needs strategy, you should be able to turn your carrots into beetroots.

Beetroots (upside down)

The beetroot shaped supporter file is the one to aim for. Its fat belly shows that the majority of donors have given very recently with just a small number making up the tiny root who have lapsed.

 

As far as health goes, this is a fantastic position to be in. 

These donors don't need to be marketed to. They represent a file of great supporters who care about what you do and want you to succeed. People on the beetroot shaped file simply require good service so another charity can't win them away.

Rather than think of ways to market to them, look at how you can reward them or let them know how important they are to you. Great service is about treating them specially – taking them out of the general mailing programme and creating communications that work for them.

Again, as with every donor, try and take the guesswork out of this by finding out what the donor wants. When someone is as valuable to you as a beetroot, you should pick the telephone up and speak to them.

RFV is a powerful system and can become addictive when you see the savings and additional income it generates but as Bluefrog's head of data planning, Richard Hughes, points out:

"It's an essential tool, but adhering too strictly to RFV can mean you overlook potential in other parts of your file. 

At the end of the day, you need an integrated approach that develops prospects as well as generating income from your most valuable supporters. RFV is a huge part of the answer to better fundraising, but we must not depend on it to solve every problem we face."

Anna Walsh and The Bergstrom Effect

Bluefrog's Head of Social Fundraising, Anna Walsh, has recently started her own blog – Social Frog – with a specific focus on street and door to door fundraising.

Her first post highlights a phenomena which she has named the Bergstrom Effect.

As Anna explains, It's based on an episode from The Simpsons:

"Lisa Simpson's teacher (Mrs. Hoover) is taken ill and substituted with the weird and wonderful Mr. Bergstrom (a fine, fine performance from Dustin Hoffman). Lisa is all of a sudden exposed to inspiring, tailored teaching, which takes into account her learning style, what she thinks and what she feels. This is a revelation to Lisa and, for possibly the first time, she gets a look at what her potential is and who she'd like to be; a peek at that thing that sits at the top of Maslow's hierarchy - self-actualization.

Not surprisingly, when Mr. Bergstrom's substituting is done, Lisa finds it hard to return to the way she had been working with Mrs. Hoover. She is disillusioned with, and disengaged from, school. Heartbroken, in fact.

I'm calling this the Bergstrom Effect."

It's a phenomena demonstrated by street and door to door fundraising techniques. For the thousands of people who haven't been turned on by traditional (Mrs Hoover style) fundraising methods, the tailored and personal approach of being recruited by a real person who you can relate to is the equivalent of having Mr. Bergstrom turn up in your class.

Her concern is what happens after Mrs Hoover returns in the guise of newsletters, magazines or even in the disinterest demonstrated by the absence of any communications at all.

As Anna points out, we keep talking about the face to face demographic "attritting" just like Mrs Hoover complains about trying to teach Bart, but what would happen if we could keep Mr. Bergstrom in the relationship?

It's a problem that she has been working on for the last six or seven months and, as she says on her blog "we're on the verge" of a revolution with the imminent launch of a way to tackle the Bergstrom Effect amongst street and door to door recruits.

Check out Anna's blog for the full story.

Forget toxic assets. It's toxic donors that we need to worry about

How can some donors be toxic? Aren't they all the same?

 

Sadly, the answer is no.

Just look at attrition rates of regular givers. Some of the most recently adopted recruitment techniques have very high levels of attrition – face to face, TV and telephone recruited questionnaire donors can all demonstrate a toe-curling number of cancellations. 

Whereas donors recruited by routes such as press (and increasingly a number of online routes) can be very loyal.

If we look at how people make the decision to give, it is easy to see why.

Traditionally, a giving decision depends on knowledge prompting action – the bulk of thoughts and feelings happen before we put our hands in our pocket.

I've had direct experience of what happens when we removing this thinking time from the giving process...

Years ago I worked at a charity where press was the main form of recruitment. The organisation had a very long running press campaign that was stopped for a period of about six months. When the ads started running again they didn't work – and I'm talking about proven ads in proven titles. 

There was little alternative to keep running the ads as many had been booked well in advance. 

And what happened was that the ads – over time – started working again. 

The ads had a slow burn impact on the readers. They saw the need, thought about it, took in information from third party sources and (after what was a surprisingly specific number of opportunities to see) finally made the decision to give. As a result, they were very loyal.

The newer acquisition routes, however, compress the time for consideration into a few minutes. This means that emotion is the primary driver of action and the thinking time happens after giving.  

   

If we choose to use techniques that compress thinking time to fit the length of a TV ad or a conversation on a street corner we need to take into account the psychological position that we place the person who is giving. 

After signing up, they are wondering if they have done the right thing. They don't know if their money or they will be appreciated.

As a result, we can't simply drop them into standard donor communication programme. These aren't designed to engage people struggling with a level of doubt.

If we do, we are largely dependent on what Professor Adrian Sargeant describes as passive commitment – a term that refers to the disempowering fact that we are left simply hoping that donors can't be bothered to cancel.

Unfortunately many can be bothered – particularly at times of financial stress – and we are left with growing attrition rates as a direct result. 

So what do we do?

Doing nothing isn't an option. Attrition rates are already too high.

One route is to enter into PI deals with media owners or demand ever larger guarantees from the face to face companies.

The success of this strategy depends on increasing the chance of finding those people who are happy to passively commit. But with tightening belts, this number is dwindling.

We need to recognise that there are a large number of people who will give if we start putting some effort into the relationship. We must actively take their needs into account – otherwise they are simply going to continue to ignore our communications until we get fed up and leave them alone. 

In doing so they'll become toxic, representing a cost rather than an asset. What's worse is that their memory of the charity could be tainted by their experience. Something – just like DDT – that could last in the system for years.

Donors like these are hassle. It's not their fault. Nor is it the fault of the recruitment channel. They are great people. They just need to be understood.

If you aren't willing to take into account the psychological position of the donor when they are recruited you are restricting your acquisition options and should avoid some of the most emotionally powerful recruitment vehicles. 

Otherwise, you might end up costing your charity money. 

But if you are willing to meet a new donor where they are when they first join. If you are willing to respond to their needs. If you are willing to put the time into developing relevant communications. And if you are willing to accept that recruitment starts at the point someone signs a direct debit form, then you've got the chance to achieve some amazing things – no matter what the economic situation we are in.