There have been plenty of research done on what kind of communications and messaging appeals to donors and drives them to give. Most have concluded that quantifiable and personal impact statements where donors can see how their money helps others are the most effective strategy. The more concrete and personal the impact story is, the better. The donor feels he/she made a positive difference in the world. They feel good about themselves. So, they do it again and again, hopefully to the same organization.
A recent study by Campaign Monitor found that 68.8% of donors reported they are more likely to give after receiving a compelling request for donations that meet a specific need and 61.1% of donors want to hear stories about impact and how their services are helping.
Even more compelling is the 2015 Case Foundation study that recently reported that 78% of millennials surveyed will stop donating if they do not understand the impact of a donation. 72% will stop donating if they didn’t feel a personal connection with the organization. That means to me that the next generation will respond to messaging that includes concrete impact statements and storytelling which is important knowledge for future planning.
But there’s a wrinkle to my story. For decades, our most successful donor appeals have always been some version of “Your gift of $X will feed one person at LSS Faith Mission” or “When you donate $XX, we can provide 10 hot and nourishing meals at LSS Faith Mission”. These asks have always been fruitful for us. We use the strategy in direct mail appeals, email appeals, SEM and digital advertising, even at fundraising events.
However, we recently did a random survey of philanthropic-minded community members (not necessarily our donors) to measure the local brand awareness and interest in our programs. In the survey, we asked respondents to rate a series of “offers” or “asks” for donations. The results were unexpected and interesting.
Out of 10 offers, 27% of the respondents rated “You have the power to transform a life” as the most compelling offer. This is an offer we have never used before! 13% rated our usual “$X provides a meal to a hungry neighbor” offer as the most impactful. All other offers received less than 10% of the vote as the top offer. When we break it down by generation, it’s even more interesting. Of all of the respondents who were Generation X, 37% of them rated “You have the power to transform a life” as the most inspirational but only 9.9% of Gen X rated “$X provides a meal” as the most compelling. There were similar breakdowns for the Baby Boomers and Seniors groups. But for Gen Z and Millennials the results were evenly split between both offers. 16.3% of the younger group voted for the transformation message and 17% voted for the meal message. Then we compared the responses of our donors to prospective donors and found even more surprising results. 30.8% of our donors rated the transformation ask as the most compelling while only 7.7 % rated the meals ask at the top. Also, 23.1% rated a new offer as the most inspirational. This one was “A roof over his head. Hope in his heart”. We’ve never used that one before either!
What does this all mean? I should note that we have not been losing donors and average gifts are up. That’s why I find it incredibly interesting that an aspirational and somewhat vague ask like “You have the power to transform a life” were rated so highly. I think some of the appeal is using words like “you have the power”. That is classic storytelling strategy where the reader becomes the hero of the story. But “transforming a life” is so squishy! That could mean about a million things. How are we transforming a life? Whose life are we transforming? It’s very subjective. And it flies in the face of the research and recommendations of experts on using concrete impact statements and dollar amounts. Is this survey result just an anomaly? Was it just a quick reaction to a hopeful message? Sometimes we think we like something when we read it at first but that doesn’t mean it drives us to action.
This survey fostered a whole new set of questions for us here at LSS. Even if our messaging is working right now, are we going down the wrong path with future donor messaging? Or are donors changing their focus on why they donate and we need to pivot to keep up with them? More research is needed to answer those questions. We are planning a new survey for a larger group of just donors. Meanwhile, I think we should start testing other messaging strategies. I feel that the “A roof over his head. Hope in his heart.” ask is a good place to start because it has elements of both impact and aspiration. Let’s see how it does.
What are you seeing at your nonprofit? Are you using personal impact statements are your main offer? Or are you revising your messaging to address new donor needs? Isn’t data fun?!?!
#nonprofitmessaging #donorrelations #philanthropy #storytelling #nonprofitmarketing
