Blueprint Fundraising

Interview: Trepel on the use of emotion in fundraising

In July I spoke to Chris Trepel about several concepts of behavioural decision theory and how they can help in fundraising. This entry continues the conversation with another useful concept: the “affect heuristic.�

What is the “affect heuristic�?

While we all like to think that we are hard-nosed when it comes to making important decisions, in fact, our emotions can cloud our judgments. The term “affect heuristic� refers to our tendencies to replace data and evidence with our emotional (or affective) reaction to a problem or situation.

Much fundraising attempts to invoke strong emotions. Is there evidence to show that this works? Is it always important to “tug on the heartstrings� and put the prospective donor in an emotional state?

To answer that, let me tell you about two interesting examples of this heuristic.

If you are willing to spend $1,000 to save 10 acres of forest, how much will you spend to save 40 acres? Even if four times as much seems like too much, it’s still probably more than $1,000, right? Well, maybe not. The answer depends on the way the question is asked and how you are feeling when you respond.

When you are in an emotional state you tend to focus attention on whether or not you can have an impact rather than on the absolute size of the impact. The mere presence or absence of impact becomes more important than the numbers that describe the scale of the impact.

The relevance of this notion to fundraising was recently revealed by an experiment that examined people’s willingness to donate to save panda bears. When dots were used to represent the pandas to be saved, people said that they would donate significantly more to save four pandas than one panda ($22.00 vs. $11.67). However, when the pandas were shown as cute panda photos, people said they would donate roughly the same amount to save one panda as they would to save four ($19.49 vs. $18.95). The explanation? When pandas are represented as dots we are inclined to count and, in this mode, it seems obvious to us that the welfare of four pandas is worth more than that of a single panda. When confronted by pictures of pandas, however, we react emotionally and are inclined to simply “help the pandas� independent of the number involved.

How donation options are presented can have a major impact on how people will respond. The data above suggest that the more emotionality you can invoke, the larger the donation you’ll receive, but that simultaneously trying to tie the donation to quantifiable goals may be a waste of time since people will be disinclined to “do the math�. More importantly, though, these data indicate that you should consider how emotional your topic is, and then design your request methodology to fit it.

If your cause is not emotionally charged, is it worthwhile to make your fundraising request in a more quantifiable or numeric manner?

Yes. Donation levels or tiers are probably better suited for less emotional topics, while requests for specific amounts are better suited to emotional topics. The hardest part of applying this lesson will likely be the need to see things through the eyes of your donors. For example, while you may be personally moved to tears over the plight of a building, people in general are more likely to react strongly to the plight of small, furry, woodland creatures.

Using these examples, if you solicit for a building restoration you may want to equate each square foot of “saved building� to a dollar amount and then ask how many square feet a potential donor would like to save (perhaps bricks could be used instead of dots). For rabbits and moose, however, it may be more appropriate to ask for a flat amount (and remember to use the cutest moose picture you can find).

Let’s talk about the next example. Many fundraising pieces use two common emotions – fear and anger – to try to motivate people to give. Some worry that being too negative ultimately turns prospective donors off. Can you comment on this?

Although it has been known for some time that being in a “good� or “bad� mood can greatly affect our perceptions, work in the last five years has demonstrated that fearful people tend to be pessimistic about the future, while angry and happy people both tend to be optimistic. Fear and anger will affect people’s behaviour in predictable ways.

Specifically, fearful people will generally make risk-averse choices while angry people tend to make risk-seeking choices. That is, angry people are more interested in the potential outcome than the expected outcome, and so are willing to gamble thinking that they can “hit the jackpot�. By contrast, fearful people are more likely to avoid gambles and will seek to minimize the risk of losses when making choices, even if it means forgoing the possibility of gains.

How can we take advantage of these optimistic and pessimistic outlooks?

Many non-profits, for example environmental charities, have established funding bases. When addressing your current donors it may be influential to encourage people to consider their fears – fear that the planet is being poisoned, that our kids won’t be able to see certain animals or visit certain places. Based on the research, this fear will tend to make people risk averse and will likely motivate them to continue to do what they’ve been doing, namely, donating to their favourite environmental charity.

By contrast, consider a prospective supporter. In this case you are seeking to change their behaviour, so consider using images and text that will invoke anger. Anger will inspire them to take risks and make changes and may be just the ticket to get someone to make their first gift to a new cause. Make sure you emphasize the additional benefits your organization will bring to bear, even if you have to acknowledge that these benefits are not guaranteed. Angry people are primed to gamble, after all.

That’s very helpful. Thanks Chris!

Tip of the Week: TechSoup’s yummy deals

TechSoup offers amazing deals on software, hardware and everything technology-related, just for Canadian registered charities and US 501(c)3 groups. Need a router? Need new anti-virus software? Need a fundraising database? They have it all. Quantities are sometimes limited and deals come a go, so visit often or sign up for their new product notification email. TechSoup also hosts very informative discussions of technology issues and provides other educational resources and tools for nonprofits.

Fundraising is a sales job

I’m thinking about sales skills today. I’m ashamed to tell you why. My head is hanging in shame. This week on The Apprentice (Martha Stewart version) Matchstick lost again because of their pathetic sales skills. They were selling wedding cakes at a wedding fair. The cake was pretty. There were lots of happy couples around. But they didn’t sell a thing, because they were appalling salespeople. It was a crushing defeat. Goodbye preppy Shawn.

Some fundraising professionals cringe at the notion that fundraisers are salespeople. But we are! We’re just selling good things (hopefully).

William Sturtevant, in his excellent book The Artful Journey: Cultivating and Soliciting the Major Gift, talks about sales skills for fundraisers. He says the best salespeople engage in “collaborative” rather than “manipulative” sales. Collaborative selling is about building a partnership, being respectful, facilitating a process beneficial to the other party, and seeing beyond the immediate deal. Sounds like fundraising, no? He writes that Harvard Business School identifies these top attributes for the accomplished salesperson:

1. You don’t take “no” personally. You may be disappointed with a “no,” but you are never devastated. You have high enough levels of self-esteem to compensate for disappointments.
2. You accept responsibility for results achieved. As a corollary to this, you make negatives work to your advantage.
3. You display above average ambition and desire to succeed.
4. You display a high level of empathy.
5. You are intensely goal-oriented.
6. You have above average determination and self-discipline.
7. You are impeccably honest.
8. You have the ability to approach strangers, even when uncomfortable.

I agree that if you have these things, you’ll do well in fundraising. I often meet people who are thinking about making a career change into this field. They wonder whether their skills are transferable. I tell
them that these things are most valuable:

• Being organized and goal-oriented.
• Excellent written and oral communications abilities.
• Sales skills.
• Being passionate about the cause.

If you don’t possess these things… pack your bags and leave the loft immediately!

Charity law changes from CRA

Canada Revenue Agency has announced several changes concerning all charities. The small publication Registered Charities: What’s New? provides information on changes to the Form T3010A, Registered Charity Information Return, including a new penalty for failure to file and the disbursement quota. It also contains sanctions and appeals process as well as the new requirements for official donation receipts.

New arts funding resource

Arts Now has added a useful resource to their website: a detailed list of funding programs suitable for British Columbia arts organizations. Check it out here.

Back to school: fundraising workshops

The AFP Vancouver Professional Development Roundtable is coming up on September 29, 7 am to 11:30 am. This is for AFP members only and includes sessions on:

• The Fundraiser’s Leadership Challenge – And How to Meet It
• Career Development: Planning ahead for your career in fundraising
• Why and How to get your CFRE
• What Multi-Million Dollar Gifts Are Made Of: The Process Behind the Gift
• How to Engage your Staff, Board and all Volunteers in Supporting your Organization
• Direct Marketing: Achieving the best results possible
• Online Giving: A great idea, so how do you make it work?

Not a member of AFP? Here are a some reasons to join.

Volunteer Vancouver has an excellent line-up of fundraising sessions this fall:

• October 12 – Making the Ask – Asking for Money, Who Me?
• October 19 – Writing Grant Proposals that get Funded
• October 25 – The Dating Game: Developing Relationships with Corporate Sponsors
• November 22 – How to Create a Fund Development Plan – Your Path to Sustainable Success (I’m facilitating this one)
• November 16 – The Basics of Building a Social Enterprise

Tip of the Week: Car sharing works

Today is Car Free Day and if think you can’t possibly live without your own personal vehicle, think again. With gas prices on warp speed (not to mention climate change, traffic, smog, obesity, and many stinky results of too many cars on the road), this is a good time to consider whether car sharing could work for you.

I’ve been a member of Vancouver’s Co-operative Auto Network (CAN) since 2001. When Andrew and I moved here we discovered that car insurance was outrageous, the parking expensive, and the alternatives (such as public transit, walking, and CAN) pretty good. Andrew takes the bus and a skateboard to work at the University of British Columbia. I walk, take the bus, and use a CAN car whenever I need to (several times a week for work and errands).

How does it work? It’s a co-op, so members jointly own all the cars. There are vehicles parked all over the Lower Mainland — more than 100 cars in the fleet with new ones being added all the time. Scroll down this page to find cars near you and read the FAQs for details on how it works. Once you join, you pay a monthly fee to cover some of the fixed costs of the car and when you use a car, you pay low fees by the hour and by the kilometre. The fees include gas, insurance, maintenance, and BCAA. You have access to a car (or truck, van, stationwagon, Mini, VW Bug, Prius… yes there are some cool cars available!) when you want it. You don’t pay for more car than you need.

Email CAN if you want to know more. It’s not 100% car free — but it’s a step in the right direction!

POD deadline: October 28, 2005

If you work with a British Columbian health or social service organization, time to sharpen your pencil and go for a POD (Partners in Organizational Development) grant. The grant allows you to hire a consultant to help you address challenges in fundraising, marketing, board development, and other organizational issues. The deadline is October 28 and you can find applications and more information here.

Tip of the Week: Avoid 7 deadly sins of donor newsletters

How many times have I said this to a client: “Your donor newsletter is so long, boring, and poorly written that I can’t stand to read it! Even though I love your work! And you’re paying me!”

You probably put great effort into donor communications and your newsletter might be a cornerstone of that program. Creating something that truly adds value to your fundraising and builds a meaningful connection with your donors requires more than just dryly reporting on your work. No one wants to feel that pang of guilt as they toss your unread newsletter into the bin.

Communications expert Tom Ahern has a new book coming out at the end of this month called The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide To Raising More Money With Newsletters Than You Ever Thought Possible. I’m sure it will be excellent. Here’s one of the chapters (they really are brief!):

These Seven Flaws Are Killing You

• Flaw #1: Your newsletter fails the “you test.” I’ll explain that simple (but critical) test later. For now just keep in mind that a good donor newsletter is friendly, even intimate, in tone. If you insist instead on an institutional voice, you distance yourself from your readers.
• Flaw #2: Your newsletter skimps on emotional triggers. You already know that charity starts when you move a heart. In a donor newsletter, tugging the heartstrings is a full-time job.
• Flaw #3: You claim it’s a newsletter (i.e., a bearer of news), but it’s really just an excuse to say hi. Here’s a clue: You devote your front page to a ponderous letter “from the desk ofâ€? an ED or board chair. Beware: a newsletter with no news value is a waste of time and money. And donors are quite demanding: they want very specific kinds of news. Their interest in your organization can quickly wane if you fail to deliver.
• Flaw #4: Your newsletter is not “donor-centered.” It does not make the donor feel needed or wanted. Remember: donors don’t give to your organization. They give through your organization, in an effort to change the world. You have to give the donor credit as well as thanks.
• Flaw #5: The newsletter is not set up for rapid skimming and browsing. On the contrary, you assume people will read long articles. Here’s the harsh truth: most of your audience won’t have time to give your newsletter more than a glance. If you bury important information in long articles, most people will miss it.
• Flaw #6: Your newsletter has weak or dysfunctional headlines. If any of the fatal flaws deserves the title of “Most Deadly,” this is it. Headlines have a function: to summarize the key points of the story. Most donor newsletters I’ve seen fail at that simple task.
• Flaw #7: It depends far too much on statistics (and far too little on anecdotes) to make your case.

Tip of the Week: Visit AFP’s Seven, No, Eight Blogs

The Association of Fundraising Professionals has entered the world of blogging by starting no less than seven new blogs! It’s a little cumbersome to visit them all (don’t ask me why they didn’t just make one blog with multiple categories) but go check them out anyhow. Even as I write this, they’ve announced one more: a blog dedicated to Hurricane Katrina-related fundraising issues.