I’ve known Isabelle for years because she designed this website and the identity for my company Blueprint Fundraising and Communications. Her approach is creative yet practical. And here are some of her tips for working with designers.

How can nonprofits benefit from working with a professional designer?

A competent designer will help identify your organization’s unique message and collaborate with you to find the best means to achieve your communication goals. Building a long-term relationship with a designer or agency also ensures that all materials have a consistent look and feel and speak in a recognizable voice.

Are there special challenges in working with nonprofits? Is it different than working with a corporate client?

A key difference is a misconception that tight budgets preclude the need for a cohesive communications strategy. Time, money and resources are often limited for many smaller companies and nonprofits. Not having a clear plan can result in an ineffective use of resources and disjointed messaging. This is certainly not unheard of in corporate clients but not as common. I’ve also encountered a limited understanding of the value a professional designer can bring to the table—which we are trying to remedy here.

How can nonprofits can get the most out of their work with a designer?

1. Involving the designer at the earliest possible stage of a project. When the designer or team is involved early on there is an opportunity to develop copy and visuals concurrently, leading to a more cohesive whole.

2. Collaborate with each other. When the client and creative team can both offer their knowledge and expertise the final product will be more successful. A competent designer should build on and give shape to your ideas but might also push them or new ideas in directions you had not envisaged. Allowing this process to occur will allow you to get the most out of the experience.

3. Follow a process. As a first step, parameters or a design brief should be outlined to guide the creative process: the audience, the aim of the message, how success will be measured should be determined at the outset and used to evaluate the proposed solution. Secondly, a timeline and deliverables should be outlined (and adhered to) so the project stays on track.

Any tips on making a design budget stretch?

1. Have a strategy in place or enlist help to define one for the year, taking in consideration your goals, your resources and your budget.

2. Build long-term relationships. Whether you work with a printer or designer they can offer advice on formats, production processes and materials. They might also work with you on pricing if they know you will continue to work with them.

3. Offer sponsorship opportunities. Printers or creative companies are often keen to give back to their community or supporting causes they believe in by reducing their fees or working pro bono. Including a credit on the printed piece or web communication is a way of recognizing their support by offering them exposure. This method will work better if you follow point number two as well.

Are there nonprofits that you think do a great job in their visual communications?

The Brooklyn Academy of Music has been consistent. The new Seattle Art Museum identity and visual language is simple and applied flawlessly to all communications tools the museum puts out making it instantly recognizable. The Big Issue (magazine sold by homeless people in London) has been consistent for years. The National Film Board has done a tremendous job of solidifying and expanding on its identity in the long-term.

UPDATE: Isabelle has another tip — on where to find a designer if you need one. Check out the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada. You can search for a designer by region and look through online portfolios. The Society requires a portfolio and credentials review by peers for acceptance and ensures members (individuals or companies) adhere to the guidelines of the profession.

Thanks Isabelle!

I’m principal of Blueprint Fundraising and Communications, a Vancouver fundraising consulting firm. Since starting Blueprint in 2000 I’ve  discovered that I love the challenge and variety of being a fundraising consultant. Details on who I’ve worked with and what I do can be found at my website. Here are a few of the projects I’ve been working on lately:

• Case development for The Banff Centre’s capital campaign
• Capital campaign consulting for Better Environmentally Sound Transportation and the Vancouver East Cultural Centre
• Fundraising plans for the Living Oceans Society, the Richmond Art Gallery (with Vivian Smith of Liberty Quest), and Centre A
• Fundraising coaching for CoDevelopment Canada, New Works, and Kids Around the World
• Direct mail writing for the BC Association for Community Living
• A new workshop on for Volunteer Vancouver (on how to develop a fundraising plan) and a capital campaign session for one of BCIT’s Fundraising Management program courses
• As a volunteer I’m on two boards: the Vancouver chapter of AFP and the Co-operative Auto Network (a very cool car-sharing organization)

That’s all been keeping me very busy. In December, Andrew and I are going on a holiday to Italy to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Can’t wait!

I would love to know more about you and your adventures in fundraising and life in general. Email me.

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!

I asked Chris to tell me about Behavioural Decision Theory and how it can help us raise more money and understand the giving process. The conversation will continue through several fundit entries.

Q: What is Behavioural Decision Theory?

Most decisions involve risk and uncertainty. Should I walk to the traffic light or dash across the street? Invest in stocks or bonds? Volunteer for an environmental charity or a women’s shelter? From the simplest to the most complex situations, we all make choices without knowing what the outcomes will be. Research shows that people rely on mental short-cuts (collectively referred to as “heuristics and biases�) to simplify their choices. In essence, people are not the rational actors described by economic theory, and they do not have perfect insight into their own likes and wants. Behavioural Decision Theory provides a framework for describing and predicting how people will make choices and act under conditions of risk and uncertainty – conditions that dominate the business world.

Q: What are “heuristics and biases?�

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that can skew our judgement. This skew can, in turn, lead to biases in our behaviour. Generally speaking, very few of us use data and careful reasoning to make decisions. Instead, we tend to speed up the process. Often these shortcuts work just fine, but there are many cases when they lead to well characterized, and very poor, outcomes.

Q: What are a few of the cognitive heuristics that fundraisers should be aware of?

I’ll tell you about four. The first is known as “anchoring and adjustment.� When people are making numeric estimates, say, trying to estimate how many pennies are in a jar, they are extremely vulnerable to influence. If you are estimating the number of pennies and I call out a random number you are very likely to base your estimate, at least in part, on that number. This is true even in situations where people know that the number is irrelevant, and even when they have been told to ignore the number. A more serious example: research shows that judges’ decisions are anchored to prosecutors’ demands, and that this influence appears to be independent of whether the demand is relevant to the circumstances of the crime. That’s a little scary.

Q: Does this support the commonly-held belief in fundraising that to raise a donor’s sights when soliciting for a donation, you should ask for a specific amount of money?

Absolutely. Because we know that people will anchor on numeric values when trying to come up with an original one, it behooves anyone in a fundraising situation to try to anchor the other party on the highest possible number. Although they will adjust their final donation away from your anchor there is a very good chance that you will end up receiving much more than you would have otherwise.

Q: How about another heuristic?

A second heuristic stems from something researchers call the “peak and end rule.� Danny Kahneman, who won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics, has shown that people experience unpleasant events in a particular way. When patients recall medical treatments and evaluate how unpleasant they were, they do not remember the total amount of pain they suffered. Rather, they recall the worst point of suffering (the “peak�), and the last moment of the overall experience (the “end�). The salience of these two time-points is incredibly strong. How strong? Kahneman demonstrated that patients actually preferred longer procedures that involved more overall pain, as long as the final moment was relatively pleasant. That is, we can increase a person’s total suffering but if we make the final moments less painful, people will report a better overall experience.

Q: Not to equate being on a board with a painful medical procedure… But might this apply to acknowledging volunteers or donors? For example, can you improve the chances that people will feel good about their time on a board, in spite of challenges or difficulties, if the organization expresses gratitude in a meaningful, memorable way?

Yes, exactly. Since people will tend to remember the “peak� and “end,� organizations should build these moments into a project to try and maintain and improve morale. Although this research has tended to focus primarily on physically aversive experiences, it is likely that the effects will be seen in other venues as well. Donors may remember the peak experience they have with your organization – so make sure there is a peak. Perhaps that could be a very special type of acknowledgement or meaningful interaction with someone their gifts have helped.

Next entry: Chris tells us about two more concepts – the Affect Heuristic and some common obstacles to accurate forecasting.