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DER May Program

Grow Your Donor Base �Using Psychology

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Development Executives Roundtable

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Welcome!

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Think about the last philanthropic gift you made. What inspired you to make your gift?
Call on someone you don’t yet know to introduce themselves.

Thank you!

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We are so glad you’re here.

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Upcoming DER events

Friday, June 10th (11:45AM-1:30PM)

Virtual Program: Reimagine Nonprofit Storytelling: How to Engage your Donors and Avoid Stereotypes

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Member Spotlight

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George Koster

Radio show and Podcast Producer;

Development Consultant

Voices of the Community

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Member Spotlight

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Dale Anania

Direct Response Membership Officer

The Marine Mammal Center

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Panelists

Nick Fitz, CEO, Momentum

Rebecka Jackson, Executive Director, Resist This PAC

Host

Shaké Sulikyan, Board Member and Co-Chair of Programs, Development Executives Roundtable

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The psychology of giving

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What we’ll review today

Empirical Review: (1) awareness of need; (2) solicitation; (3) costs and benefits; (4) altruism; (5) reputation; (6) psychological benefits; (7) values; (8) efficacy.

Trends in the literature and field: (a) help directly (overhead), (b) help someone similar to themselves, (c) help an individual over a group, (d) help when they feel it can tractably solve a problem, (e) help when they receive social approval for giving, (f) help when they feel good about their giving (warm glow), (g) help when it’s the default

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Awareness of need

People give when they know there’s a need

People have to become aware of a need for support. People may have basic needs (e.g., food, shelter, security, medication, treatment), social needs (e.g., social connection, family, friends) or psychological needs (e.g., self-actualization, happiness, meaning).

Wagner & Wheeler (1969) looked at the effects of communicating needs on donations (they showed one group of people how much recipients were in need, and they didn’t show another group of recipients). They found that not objective need but subjective perceptions of need are crucial.

Survey studies reveal that more generous alumni perceive a higher need for contributions to their alma mater and that volunteers perceive a higher need for volunteers in their community (Unger, 1991)

awareness of need is increased when people know potential beneficiaries (e.g., someone with Parkinson’s, a pet owner, etc). Focus on people who may be intimately aware of the need that you’re working on

One more note that’s out of our control: as we know, the media can increase awareness of need. Simon (1997) shows that more extended media coverage of an earthquake has a strong positive relationship with private contributions supporting those affected. As we all unfortunately know, the amount of media attention often depends on who’s effected (not necessarily how in-need of help they are) e.g., people are less aware of the needs of people who are far away physically (those in other countries) or time (those in the future from say climate change or catastrophic risks) or in similarity (non-human animals)

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Solicitation

People give when they’re asked to give

People give when they’re asked to give. This may be the biggest factor in driving charitable giving.

People want to give 2.5x more than they currently do. But they don’t wake up in the morning thinking about how to give about $50 – it’s not a deep need.

A number of longitudinal studies) find that 85%-88% of donation acts are following a solicitation for a contribution.

The more times people are actively asked to give, the more likely they are to give – there’s work showing people need to hear about it 7x before they take action.

As we all know, this can backfire – take care not overburden donors with asks. Increasing the number of solicitations may produce “donor fatigue” and may lower the average contribution (2009)

Overall, we’re not asking enough (except in politics where they maybe ask too much!) but we should be careful and target.

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Costs and Benefits

People give when they feel the benefits outweigh the costs (but beware of mixing up norms)

Giving costs money. When the costs are lowered, giving increases (eg ask for less money, you’ll get more donors) but it’s not always the case – sometimes you can increase the default, and people still give (if they don’t perceive it as excessive).

Reduce Costs: tax savings affect a small portion of donors. Employer matching helps reduce costs too. There are also costs in how hard it is to give – fewer obstacles increase giving (the donation flow is very important).

Increase Benefits: We all know orgs that send people gifts for giving – you’ve seen many NPR bags, and Kickstarter or Patreon campaigns BUT INTERESTNIGLY, there’s no good empirical evidence that sending people gifts in direct mail packages increase donations.

There’s a danger in offering gifts to donor – mixing up market and social norms. There’s some great work from an old boss of mine, Dan Ariely, on how doing this can backfire.

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Altruism

People give because they care about the impact on recipients

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Reputation

People give when they think they’ll be celebrated (or punished) for giving (or not giving)

People who give are thought of positively by their peers, and they know this.

Lab experiments with public goods games by behavioral economists reveal that individuals are willing to incur costs to recognize generous contributions (Clark, 2002). Conversely, not giving damages ones reputation. This is especially true when donations are announced in public or when they are directly observable.

When given the choice, people generally prefer their donations to be known by others (2004).

Face-to-face solicitations are more effective than solicitations made over the phone. And giving people the option of donating money in an envelope rather than having them hand over the money reduces donations.

solicitors in a door-to-door fundraising campaign who looked potential donors in the eye raised more money than solicitors who looked at the collecting tin

stylized eyes spots also have a positive effect on donations.

In a telethon study, Silverman and colleagues found that viewers were most likely to give at the times when the names of pledging donors were shown on the screen.

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Psychological Benefits

People give because they can see themselves as a good person (self-signaling) and because it makes them feel good (or avoid feeling guilty or bad)

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Values

People give when the giving is in line with their values

Attitudes and values endorsed by donors make charitable giving more or less attractive to donors. Endorsement of prosocial values generally has a positive association with charitable giving. Because values are difficult if not impossible to manipulate, experimental studies on the effects of social values on philanthropy are nonexistent – correlations.

humanitarianism and egalitarianism + prosocial value orientations. Less materialistic, endorse post-materialistic goals in politics (eg progressives), spirituality, moral principle of care (Haidt on moral roots of politics – care, equality // authority, purity, loyalty), care about social order, consensus, and social justice in society, who feel socially responsible for society as a whole – make the world a better place.

(Donations can also be instrumental to exemplifying one’s endorsement of specific values to others or oneself, but this is captured by the mechanism of reputation or psychology benefits).

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Efficacy

People give when they think they’re gift will actually make a difference

Conversely, when people perceive that their contribution will not make a difference, they are less likely to give.

Experiments with public goods games have found that contributions to public goods increase with the perceived efficacy of contributions.

Giving donors with information about the effectiveness of contributions increases gift size (especially among those committed to the cause and HNWs).

A matching offer by a third party (e.g., one’s employer) can also have a legitimizing effect: People will think that the third party had enough confidence in the organization to offer the matching contribution.

Perceptions of efficacy are related to charitable confidence and perceptions of overhead and fundraising costs. Donors who have more confidence in charitable organizations think their contributions are less likely to be spent on fundraising costs and

Overhead (eg lots of studies on not showing flashy materials) – this is a tough one – as we know overhead doesn’t predict efficacy – popsicle charity example – focus on the actual impact and the cost-effectiveness of your work.

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Donors are more likely to…

(a) help directly

(b) help someone similar to themselves

(c) help an individual over a group

(d) help when they feel it can tractably solve a problem

(e) help when they receive social approval for giving

(f) help when they feel good about their giving (warm glow)

(g) help when it’s the default

directly - donors overestimate the overhead, specific donations don’t pay for overhead, let donors choose the cause their donation supports to increase confidence.
similar to themselves - - donors give more when they have something in common with recipients or askers. Frame recipients as similar to donors e.g., are they both human? Do they both care about their families?
Individual over group (or both) – identifiable victim effect – talk about awareness of need - Stalin's quote: “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic”
tractably solve a problem – understand impact
Social approval – when people know about it, when they see others sharing, when they think it’s a norm (famous study on paying UK taxes – adding one line to the tax letter that 92% of your neighbors paid on time).
Warm glow – huge topic in the literature – how to make people feel good about giving? Also giving makes people feel good (Ashley Whillans, Elizabeth Dunn, etd)
Defaults rule the world – DMV study 90%

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Building and Nurturing Community

Through successful fundraising we can measure and report back results from community organizers. This builds a sense of community and encourages recurring donors who help build and shape our community.

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Remaining Relevant

After Trump’s twitter ban we were able to quickly pivot to congress members who participated in the January 6th insurrection. This allowed us to stay relevant to our community while addressing a timely issue while still supporting much needed grassroots political work.

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Celebrity Endorsements

Socialization through celebrity endorsements created additional social proof and instilled a sense of already built community.

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Thanks!

Nick Fitz – nick@givemomentum.com

Rebecka Jackson – rebecka@resistthispac.org

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Appendix

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