queer ideas

Face to face attrition - a few thoughts

We have another chance to quantify the effects of the recession with the publication of the PFRA Face to Face Attrition Survey.

The study shows us what happened to those donors recruited on the street and door to door during 2009.

The figures look good.

• Average 1st year attrition for street campaigns fell back to 44.2% (from 53.3% in 2008). This is the lowest level of street attrition that the PFRA has ever recorded.
• Average 1st year attrition for door to door fell back to 37.2% (from 41.8% in 2008).

But the report leaves me asking a number of questions.

2009 was the height of the recession so I have difficulty believing the reference in the PFRA press release that the reduction in attrition rates is a post-recession phenomenon.

Let's start by comparing the PFRA figures to those released by Rapidata in their 2011 Direct Debit (DD) tracking report. As you'll see, 2009 is the first year where face to face techniques return a better attrition rate than that seen for (a massive percentage) of the entire UK DD universe.

When you take into account the fact that most DDs are cancelled in the first few months, it shows the PFRA figures in a very positive light. Something good is happening. But what?

Lets take it point by point...

Where are the no pays?

It doesn't look as though no pays have been included in the calculations (a no pay is a DD that doesn't result in a single gift). No pay rates have been increasing over the years. For example, back in 2004, face to face agencies recruited an extra 14% of donors at no charge (to replace no pays).The guarantee today is significantly higher. 

The figures released by the PFRA show a first month attrition rate of about 11 or 12% - much lower than the current no pay rate. Add the two together and we may find about a third of all recruits are giving once – or not at all – before throwing in the towel.

If that's the case, the figures would still show an improving trend. They just wouldn't be so good.

It would be interesting to know what no pays actually are. Anecdotally I've heard that they are running at over 20%, but I'd like to have the actual figures to confirm.

What was the impact of the closure of Dialogue Direct?

Dialogue Direct was one of the UK's largest face to face recruitment agencies. It closed in 2009. As a result of this, the total number of people recruited via face to face techniques fell by 115,000 between 08/09 and 09/10. In one fell swoop there was much less pressure on the market and the remaining players could concentrate on recruiting at the best sites.

There would also be another positive impact on attrition. With many face to face recruiters out of work, there would be more competition for employment, with the cream of the recruiters rising to the top.

Did the 2008 jump in attrition rates frighten away the charities with less sophisticated fundraising programmes?

As the Fundraising Detective has pointed out, there is a huge disparity in attrition rates for different charities. If the charities with the worst attrition management campaigns were driven from the market, this would have a positive impact on overall cancellation rates.

Long time readers of this blog will know that I think the most important way of tackling face to face attrition is by improving stewardship programmes. I've blogged about how Buefrog tests have shown that personal treatment and a focus on impact reporting have dramatically improved face to face attrition rates.

It might be shocking but the fall in attrition could be down to the fact that we are getting better at communicating with younger donors?

Is there more focus on recruiting older donors?

On the other side of the coin, we've known for some time that the biggest infuence on attrition is age. Older donors are much more likley to keep their promises. Following the bad results in 2008 has there been more emphasis on avoiding students and the young unemployed?

Is there more focus on recruiting donors at lower gift levels?

The other major influence on attrition is gift amount. The higher the monthly gift, the more likley it is to be cancelled. If the 'ask' amount is dropped, attrition might also fall, but so does income. The result could be less attrition but also less money being raised.

Or is it down to something else?

I'm especially pleased that Adrian Sargeant is reviewing the figures. Hopefully he'll answer these questions and probably come up with a few insights that haven't occurred to the rest of us. That's one reason to look forward to the autumn when we'll see their publication.

Finally a big thanks to all those involved for taking the time and effort to share such great information. The rest of the fundraising profession could take a leaf from their book.

Donors don't like giving when it doesn't feel good

Face to face donor recruitment is back in the spotlight following the publication of a survey that reported 44% of respondents thought chugging was the most aggressive form of fundraising.

The PFRA was quick to respond, questioning the validity of the sample, the questions and the results.

I have some sympathy with their point of view.

As we've seen from the recent FRSB annual report, it takes thousands of face to face solicitations to generate an actual complaint. So it's worth taking a minute or two to ask what this research actually tells us?

Unfortunately, I don't have a full set of tables, but the details provided by Third Sector and Fundraising magazine show:

• When asked which technique was the most aggressive form of fundraising...

– 54% chose doorstep campaigners

– 44% chose high street chuggers

– 43% chose telephone calls to the home

• 39.7% said that they had stopped supporting a charity because of the way it tried to raise funds.
• 60% said 'chuggers' had put them off supporting the charity they were representing.

I agree with the PFRA that this isn't a representative sample – but that doesn't mean the respondents aren't donors. Far from it. The survey was featured on easyfundraising.org.uk (a shopping site that ensures that a donation is made to a charity every time you buy something via one of their links).

It appears most users are recruited via charity partners, social networks and old-fashioned PR. As such, I'd think that the self-selecting respondents (70% of whom are women) are more likely to be active donors than we'd find amongst a sample that was representative of the UK population. On that basis, I wouldn't be surprised if the age-profile was significantly older than average.

Even so, I was surprised so many of the respondents described face to face recruitment as aggressive. 

Adrian Sargeant, back in 2003, actually found that most people who signed up to a charity through a face to face interaction reported a high level of satisfaction with the process of recruitment.

And the donors (and non-donors) we've spoken to about face to face recruitment in the last few years have never shown any concern about aggression. People have described recruiters as annoying, irritating or even as 'creepy', but none said they were aggressive.

The real problem with such a simple approach to assessing opinion is that that no matter the reality of people's experiences of being asked for a gift, the method of asking that most intruded into a donor's personal space was always going to be ranked according to whatever negative characteristic that was on offer – in this case aggression.

Focusing on aggression seems a rather odd, arbitrary, decision. If anything, the emotions that bother people the most when being asked are to do with embarrassment, not knowing how to say no, being inconvenienced by the interruption. Nothing to do with the emotions we associate with the results of aggression - such as intimidation or hostility. They asked the wrong question. And they were always going to get those answers.

But does that mean we can dismiss this survey?

I'd actually say no. Even though there is an obvious sampling bias and poor wording, I still think it has some use. Taken as a whole, it serves to highlight one very important point – people judge charities via the interactions they have with them.

In Bluefrog's 2009 research into lapsing – which can be downloaded here – donors told us that poor quality and inappropriate communications actively pushed them away from charities.

This is because inappropriate and unwanted communications generated negative emotions that donors didn't particularly enjoy. And when giving doesn't feel good, donors don't like to give.

So what makes donors feel bad about being asked for money? Well, this is what our research sample told us...

The charity makes changes that the donor dislikes or doesn't value

A change in name, purpose or a way of operating can cause an uncomfortable feeling. We found a significant number of donors voicing concerns over charities becoming too 'political'. This could also relate to exposure to different fundraising techniques.

Taking donors for granted

This takes many forms. Not thanking appropriately, asking too often, sending inappropriate communications or not recognising what a donor has done. 

Breaking promises

A broken promise tells the donor you don't care about them. It could be ignoring a direct request or failing to meet an expectation. This was particularly important for donors who were recruited face to face. Many described an enjoyable and engaging recruitment experience which was followed by communications that left them feeling let down.

Not paying attention

This isn't just ignoring what a donor does, but also what a donor doesn't do. Donors expect charities to understand what they like and what they don't like. For example, a number of donors said that when they refused a request to set up a committed gift, they tended to mean it. If they were asked again it made them think that they weren't very important.

When the ask feels inappropriate

Donors know that charities need money. They also know that they have to ask for it. But being asked at the wrong time, or for the wrong amounts, or by methods they don't like can generate negative emotions. And no donor enjoys to feel that they're being asked too often.

By not knowing when to stop

Donors were particularly irritated by the fact that they still received appeals from charities when they had asked for them to stop, or if instead of an acknowledgement or thank you, an appeal was the first communication they'd received since cancelling a regular gift.

The key point is that communications need to be relevant and appropriate for the audience. Mass-marketing techniques are always going to present a charity with difficulties. The goal is to have a strategy in place to mitigate any problems. My top three tips would be...

• Don't be pushy
• Respond to complaints as a priority
• Keep a close eye on your data and treat your donors according to their wishes.

So what have fundraisers been doing over the last 30 years?

A rather interesting paper has just been published by CGAP and CMPO looking at three decades of charitable giving in the UK.

It's based on a detailed analysis on the main trends in giving that uses the government's Living Costs and Food Survey (which used to be called the Family Expenditure Survey – FES).

The last thirty years have been a period of massive social, technological, political and economic change. And by taking a long-term look back in time we should be better placed to make plans for the current turbulent era and those yet to come.

The full paper (all 64 pages) can be downloaded here, but for those of you too busy to read it yourself, here are a few points that I think are worth highlighting:

The Millennium marked the end of a decline in the proportion of households giving to charity

Back in 1978, the number of households that gave (during a two-week survey period) to charity stood at 32%. It had fallen to 25% by 1999. Over the first eight years of the current decade it averaged at over 28%.

To my mind, that bounce back matches the explosion in face-to-face recruitment and is representative of all those young donors finding their way on to our databases.

Donations have increased

Donors are now giving almost three times as much as they did in 1978.  But the rise in giving over the last twenty years only reflects the growth in GDP.

As a share of total spending, households give just 0.4% – the same as they did in 1988.

All the new charities that have been set up, the new fundraising techniques that have been introduced, the growth in regular giving (up from 36% in 1983 to 63% in 2008) and the impact of the web haven't had that much impact on how much people actually give.

Giving is largely recession-proof

This is something that a number of us who have lived through economic downturns have been highlighting for some time. It's good to see that the statistics support our opinion. As you'll see from this chart, even during the difficult times (marked in red and green), giving has remained strong:

I've posted before that recruitment and subsequent development of new donors can get rather tough when money is tight. Some analysis that I've seen has shown that more donors are just giving a single gift to a charity and simply not responding to subsequent appeals. I'm also hearing of some frightening rates of attrition regarding street fundraising.

And when I look to the future, even with these statistics in mind, I have some real concerns about what will happen over the next twelve months. The number of people who look likely to lose their jobs (particularly older women employed in the public sector) worries me and I will be amazed if we don't see an even more pronounced effect on recruitment. I just hope, that as in the past, our loyal donors will make up the shortfall. Whether they do is probably down to the actions that we take now. But more on that later.

Older donors are becoming even more important

The over 65s now account for 35% of all donations, compared to just 25% in 1978.

One area of particular interest that the report uncovers is the giving behaviour of baby boomers (the youngest tranche of this demographic group is highlighted in grey in the table) whom we first observe when they were in their early twenties and then track right through to their forties. As you'll see, participation grows as they age. That to me is rather good news. A number of people have questioned whether baby boomers will be as generous as their parents and grandparents. The trend indicates that they are (for more on this, please take a few minutes to read the comments to this post).

Affluent donors are giving more

The richest 10% of households now account for 22% of total given (up from 16% in 1978). From 2003 to 2008, the top 50% of households (ranked by donation size) accounted for 92% of all giving. It should be noted that the largest donation observed in the 30 years of data is only £1,500 so it seems very likely that many high-value donors haven't found their way onto the survey. If they were included, the impact of the rich would be even more pronounced.

So what does this mean for those of us fundraising today?

First off, I think we can draw some comfort from the evidence that donors keep giving at times of economic hardship. Though the current recession is particularly tough, I'm confident most donors will remain true to form.

However, qualitative research undertaken by Bluefrog shows that when money becomes tight, donors are likely to focus their giving on favoured causes and organisations.

As a result, charities must concentrate on giving donors what they want – a real understanding of what their giving has achieved and a means of becoming part of the charity rather than just a a source of funds.

This is important for donors of all ages. An ongoing worry of mine is the possible impact a poor relationship might have on donors who are early in their giving lives. A large number of young people recruited on the street are currently cancelling their regular gifts shortly after sign-up. The response of many charities seems to be little more than hoping for the best and expecting the recruitment agency to replace the lost donors as part of a guarantee. Of course, this approach might be effective in the short-term, but what is the long-term impact on how that donor sees the charity when they enter the prime charitable stage of their lives?

Charities should also look at how they treat mid-value donors (those who give between £100 and £5,000). At Bluefrog we've seen that donors in this range respond best to charities who drop the mass marketing approach and concentrate on adding value through increasing relevence and personalisation. The result is a significant increase in income.

Finally, a robust win-back strategy should be developed for donors who lapse. If donors are lost, it doesn't have to be for ever. But winning back should not simply be handed over to a telephone agency. A real relationship is based on hearts and minds, not just repeatedly asking until someone says yes just so they can put down the phone.

How should we defend face-to-face fundraising?

During my recent break from blogging, I've been keeping an eye on the debate about face-to-face fundraising.

It's been quite a saga.

It was obviously all kicked off by the piece on BBC's Newsnight. If you missed it, you can watch it here.

The central story was that charities pay professional face-to-face companies to recruit regular givers, paying up to £136 for each new donor they sign-up. 

Newsnight questioned whether this was a good use of funds, citing industry figures that show more than 50% of people recruited in this way cancel their direct debit in the first year. 

With the average annual value of a donor standing at about £90, their view was it seemed as though most of a donor's gift was going to the professional companies – not to fund the core work of the charity.

It appears from reading the PFRA response that it wasn't the most even handed piece of journalism...

'A Newsnight researcher revealed his real agenda when he told the PFRA: “I think if people knew how much it costs charities to recruit them then they wouldn’t sign up [via an F2F fundraiser].” We believe that the journalists working on this story set out from the start explicitly to persuade people not to donate via F2F because of the allegedly ‘prohibitive’ costs. Of course that argument could only be maintained by systematically ignoring the costs of other forms of fundraising, some of which work out at far greater per donor than F2F, and by ignoring the return on investment that F2F generates (often over 1:3). Essentially their agenda was not to ‘inform’ the public but to convince them of the ‘truth’ of their own personal – and false – prejudices.'

But stitch up or not, the sector doesn't seem to have handled this story particularly well.

When the BBC asked charities how much they spend to recruit a new face to face donor, only two responded – Cancer Research UK who pay £112 a head and the British Heart Foundation who pay £136. Newsnight informed us that other charities cited 'commercial confidentiality' as the reason for their reluctance to respond.

And though they were asked, charity CEOs weren't up for defending face-to-face on the show. Mark Astarita, Director of Fundraising for the British Red Cross, explained why ...

'Newsnight wanted to set us up in a head-to-head situation with a small charity that hates face-to-face,” Astarita said. “It would have been a David and Goliath-type battle which nobody would have won.  It would have been damaging to the whole sector and so everybody made a wise judgement not to play that horrible game."

“You could tell by the way they structured all the questions that they had an agenda – it was not an ‘investigation’, they wanted to make their story stick.”

In the end, Newsnight was unable to find charities to take part and so at the last minute decided simply to interview a charity that uses face-to-face.  That was when the BHF agreed to take part, Astarita said.

He added that if Newsnight had proposed a straight interview from the outset, he expected charities would have been queuing up to defend the practice." '

The trouble is, whether we like it or not, it's the media channels that set the agenda and if we don't respond intelligently, we'll all be worse off.

A recent survey by the Charity Commission has shown that over the last two years, 11% of people have lost trust in charities, with media coverage about charities and how they spend their donations seemingly driving this change in attitude.

Which is why I was disapointed to read about the debate at the recent IOF conference on face-to-face fundraising, where PFRA CEO, Mick Aldridge summed up the sector's reluctance to defend face-to-face fundraising...

'Aldridge's attack wasn’t limited to the sector’s reluctance to defend face-to-face, but also centred on the “intolerable and hypocritical... ‘slagging off’ that face-to-face receives from some of our so-called colleagues from other fundraising disciplines”.

“That is rank hypocrisy and it has to stop,” he said. He noted that direct mail recruitment costs “are many orders of magnitude higher than for face-to-face” and challenged advocates of that medium, and others such as digital, to publish figures on RoI and costs for general viewing.'

It seems that the PFRA is concentrating on defending face-to-face on cost – because it recruits donors more cost-effectively than press or direct mail it should own the moral high ground. That's fine if the debate is within the charity sector. But as we know, it's a little wider than that.

Mick has also pointed out that we need a champion to defend the technique. And he's right, but I'd go one step further.  We are one sector and we all succeed or fail together. We need every single charity in the land to commit to champion fundraising in all its forms. Because, as it is now,  it's quite obvious that few donors fully appreciate the impact of their response to our fundraising messages.

A series of nfpSynergy studies has found that donors think that just 25 pence in every pound they donate actually goes to fund actual 'work'. The perception is that the majority of their gifts are used to cover administration and fundraising costs.

And it's people like Rarry Revan, who comments on another piece in Civil Society, who suggests a blindingly obvious way that we can tackle this misconception...

'Get a beneficiary out there, maybe a cancer survivor who said without face to face I wouldn't be alive. Or an African doctor who learnt their trade because of donors who were signed up on the doorstep.'

By taking this approach we shift the debate from how we raise money to the impact of how we spend it. And every single charity in the land can help achieve this goal. It's not about big advertising campaigns either. We'll win this argument on the micro-level.

Take Care International for example. They have shown that the attrition rate of face-to-face can be halved by providing donors with personalised, high quality feedback on how their donations have been used.

And ActionAid generates response rates to thank you feedback packs that many charities would love to get from their actual appeals.

The fact that a significant percentage of people find face-to-face recruiters irritating is just one symptom of a wider problem. We have to remember that people complain about DM, telephone fundraising and even online advertising too. Donors simply aren't linking their gifts to any measurable outcome.  And we are verging on stupid if we continue to ignore the desire amongst donors to know what difference their gifts have made.

People pay for value and if, after a great face-to-face recruitment process, you find yourself on the receiving end of a stream of self-congratulatory newsletters and appeals for more money it's not surprising that you might feel a bit short-changed.

The moral high ground on this matter is well within our grasp, but it won't be gained through an internal debate about relative costs nor through interviews on Money Box or Newsnight.

Instead we should confront criticism through aggressively demonstrating the benefits of our work.

By doing so, we'll ensure that the amazing goals we are striving for - cures for disease, the eradication of poverty and the end of cruelty and injustice - are worth the inconvenience of a smile and invitation for a quick chat from a nice fundraiser on a street corner.

How to reduce face to face attrition by up to half

One of the problems of using face-to-face techniques to recruit donors has been the high cancellation rates.

It's not unusual to see more than 50% of all supporters recruited in this way cancel their regular gift in the first year.

The fundraising industry has always struggled with this huge exodus of donors. Much of the blame has been placed with the face-to-face and door-to-door fundraising agencies. The implication has been that they have recruited the 'wrong type' of donor or perhaps put too much pressure on people to sign up.

The agencies responded by offering partial refunds or ever growing numbers of replacement donors.

I've always thought it a crazy situation.

The charity who appoints an agency on these terms doesn't really need to bother investing time and money in engaging donors. After all, the agency is going to cover the costs for for those who cancel.

Yep. It's crazy alright. Of course the agency doesn't pick up the bill. Their prices have to be inflated to cover the cost of offering the guarantee. The charity still pays for the donors who cancel, just as they do for those they retain. And what's more, the donors who slowly drift away after a gift or two aren't covered by any money back or replacement offer.

And this doesn't take into account the impact that a poor experience can have on the perception of a specific charity (or the sector as a whole).

So what do we do about this massive problem?

Something very simple.

We change our attitude.

When launching a street or door recruitment campaign, we shouldn't just cross our fingers and hope for a good crop of new supporters. We should do something positive to demonstrate to our new and usually young donors that we are a charity worthy of their support. We should show them what a rich and rewarding relationship with a charity should actually be like.

As I've pointed out on this blog many times before, one thing that unites all donors is a desire to understand what difference their specific gift has made.

The donors we are recruiting through face-to-face may well be significantly younger than the traditional direct mail donor, but they are no different from their forebears in this key respect. If we can show them what they have done and the resulting impact, there is a very good chance that we'll retain them.

And after a large amount of hard work, we've proved that this theory actually works.

We put this idea into practice last year, when working with DialogueDirect (now Real Fundraising) and Home Fundraising we recruited face-to-face and door-to-door donors for CARE International using an online donor feedback system that we've called USPACE.

We created USPACE as a modular system that any charity or non-profit can use to provide feedback to their donors without the need to go through the expense and time of creating a custom built website. The basic architecture can be re-skinned to fit any design and works with most databases. If anyone saw Matt Goody from Age UK present at the Institute of Fundraising Convention in London, they would have seen an example of how USPACE works.

But for those who couldn't make it along, let me explain. Its starts at the point of recruitment.

Donors are given materials that don't just talk about what the charity has done, but focuses on the work that the donor will be helping make happen. CARE International's new donors, for example, received three seeds - a peanut, a pumpkin seed and a grain of rice. Each signified a specific project. Accompanying the seeds was a small sheet of stickers that the donor could use to send messages to some of the children who will benefit from their support.

The donor was also pointed to USPACE in the guise of www.mycarezone.org to find out what their gift was making possible.

The site has been built to place the donor at the centre of CARE International's work. Even their name is given the same prominence as the charity logo. The language is inclusive. It talks about what the donor has done. You is heavily used instead of the ubiquitous We found on so many charity sites.

Through regular updates, the donor gets to see a project unfold, often from different points of view - a beneficiary, a project worker or even another supporter.

The site doesn't pretend to be a Facebook type social networking site. It's far from it. But what it does do is build on the decision making process described by Mark Earls author of Herd...

"The assumption is that by-and-large, individuals make decisions on their own. My Herd point-of-view is that people influence each other, often without realising it."

Donors are encouraged to share why they are supporting CARE International and what they like about the projects they read about. Each time someone visits the site they get to see that they are actually part of a community. But most importantly, they see the reason why other people are giving. These endorsements help to create a virtuous circle where donors are reinforcing each others giving.

We've also turned the concept of project information on its head. Rather than just the charity deciding what work should be shared, donors can flag up what they are interested in. And we also use information from outside the organisation. Relevant films on YouTube, articles from newspaper and magazine sites and great photographs (like these from Bangladesh) can all be used at no cost through linking and embedding. You can see another sample page by clicking here.

You'll also see from the main page that upgrading and adding extra gifts is incredibly easy. By clicking the button I've highlighted on the right, a gift is added to the next direct debit payment. Donors seem to love it.

Should a donor cancel their gift, the site can help identify the reason and offer them a chance to reduce their gift or even take a small payment holiday.

USPACE has many similar features that engage and empower donors (too many to cover in one blog post), but I imagine you are wondering about the impact?

As you'll see from the results graph, it halved attrition over the first 4 months amongst the people who signed up (those with 0 payments are people who cancelled their direct debit before their first gift).

I can't share precise figures, but compared to 2009, attrition was down even amongst new recruits who hadn't signed up to USPACE (No MCZ). What's most exciting however, is that we have seen a massive 50% fall in cancellations from those supporters who did sign up (MCZ). Our next goal is to offer USPACE to more donors and we are currently trialing initiatives to ensure more donors take advantage of the great feedback on offer. Adrian Sargeant pointed out in Building Donor Loyalty, that attrition is an expensive activity. By reducing an attrition rate from 20% to 10% an organisation can increase it's revenue by 50% over ten years.

I'll leave the last word on USPACE to CARE International's Head of Direct Marketing, Tracey Horner...

"Engagement is up and attrition is down. We are now offering USPACE to all supporters and plan to expand its use to reactivation of lapsed donors. If the effect is anywhere near that achieved for face-to-face, we are going to be as happy as our supporters appear to be with their enhanced understanding of what their gift actually achieves.

Their feedback shows they really appreciate seeing how they actually make a difference."

Essential tips on successful face to face recruitment

Just discovered this, which made me chuckle. It's more a lesson in how not to do it.

Fundraising 1880s style

Another treat from the archives from Gary Shearin at the YMCA.

This time it's an appeal letter from the 1880's and It's a cracker. The goal is the construction of a new YMCA in Newcastle-on-Tyne.

In effect, it's a very early version of face to face recruitment with a fundraising target of £5 (which is the equivalent of requesting £450 today).

The letter asks the fundraiser to visit a selection of identified prospects along with all their relatives and friends.

They are asked to collect the victorian equivalent of the direct debit - an annual subscription – of at least 5 shillings (25 pence). The advice is that those people who give a single donation are most likely to agree to a regular gift.

To help, they are given a purse to hold the money they collect (which could possibly fall foul of the current IOF codes of fundraising practice!) with the promise that this will be placed on the building's memorial stone to be laid by the Attorney General.

Finally the letter gives a nod to donor needs, pointing out the YMCA will be available for their and their children's use (only the the male ones at that time, unfortunately) before giving an endorsement from the bible.

It's interesting to note that the letter avoids the unnecessary detail that makes so many of today's fundraising materials so turgid. Though I'd probably like a little more on what exactly the fundraiser will be achieving by getting involved.

For good measure, the letter is signed by three upstanding members of the local community.

The result was this fine building.

The rest of Gary's discoveries, will be making their way to SOFII. I'll make sure I let you know when they are up.

And finally, the all-important purse.

You reap what you sow

Having spent a few days in Cornwall, I had an opportunity to get on the delivery end of some of the charities I support.

The National Trust were absolutely great at Bedruthan Steps, asking me about places I've visited and handing over a map featuring other properties they thought I might like.

But I was most impressed by the integrated approach to recruitment I experienced at the Eden Project.

After parking my car, I walked past a sign that offered me free entry for a year (actually I walked past about half a dozen of them). It's not a huge amount of good to me as it's unlikely I'll be making multiple trips to St Austell over the next twelve months.

But it was still a pretty good offer...

£16 for entry today or £16 for unlimited entry for a year.

And if I sign up to Gift Aid, the Eden Project can also claim tax back on my payment.

It sort of became a why not? decision in my mind as I walked to the ticket desk.

But I had an answer to that. I hate filling in forms and queuing. So that's why not. I'd rather give an extra gift than start answering all manner of questions about who I am and why I visited (because a volcano wouldn't let me get on a plane).

And that's where they were clever. When I got to the ticket desk, I found it was a PAF friendly sign up - postcode, house number and name. Nothing to fill in and nothing to sign.

So, like everyone else in the queue, I said yes.

In return I received a membership card, a sticker and advice on some of the best things to see on our visit

As a result they have my contact details, along with thousands of others. And if there is something I know about people who like plants and gardening, it is that they also have a high propensity to give to charity.

So, I might be on the first stage to being a long-term supporter. I don't know if I'll say yes, but the journey I've been with them so far has impressed me...

• Ensuring I know they are a charity
• Emphasising they need my support
• Thanking me with repeated free entry for the price of single entry
• Getting my contact details
• Making it easy
• Getting a Gift Aid declaration
• Finding out about my interests
• Thanking me again

I'm now looking forward to seeing if their development programme is as good as their recruitment one.

So donors are rational are they?

A study by academics from East Carolina University, the University of Chicago, the University of Maryland and the University of Nevada-Reno came up with some interesting results that showed that it's not always what a charity says or does that influences a gift.

The research comprised a door-to-door fundraising field experiment that included 5,000 households. Each was asked to support a charity, some through buying a lottery ticket and others by giving a donation. The study found the sale of lottery tickets was the most effective way to raise money.

However, the researchers also looked at the impact of the fundraiser and found the biggest factor in determining financial success was their attractiveness (especially if they were female).

Each fundraiser was rated in terms of attractiveness on a scale of one to ten. It was found that one standard deviation unit increase in attractiveness boosted the average gift size by between 50% and 135%.

In short, beautiful women raised most money (and yes, most of the increase in income came from men).

You can download the paper here (PDF) to see some rather complicated equations showing the impact of a pretty face.

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.