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.
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I am surprised that it took a study by acedemics at a university to come to the conclusion that people are more likely to part with their money to a worthy cause if they think they have a chance of getting something back, that gambling is a further inducement to part with money because the sum paid includes participation in a ‘game’ and chance of reward, that a pretty face is more likely to get a sympahetic response than an ugly one and that a man is more likely to be influenced to spend by a woman, particularly if she is attractive.
I understood that these concepts had been the underlying principles of advertising and marketing since those industries were founded.
I suspect the only thing we have really ‘learned’ from this study is that give a bunch of academics some money and they are just as likely to waste it on waffle as politicians would.
Talk about stating the obvious.
Hi Mike
I try not to judge how much people know about fundraising when putting together posts. What is obvious to one person might be a new thought to someone else.
Take a look at the fundraising materials produced by some of our biggest charities and you’ll see work that could benefit from a big injection of common sense.
There are many things that influence fundraising strategies – the power of the brand, the desire to focus on the charity rather than the donor, the need to “break the mould”. I hope by publishing work like this that I help to make sure that people don’t forget what actually works.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Mark
Hello Mark,
Appreciate what you say – and what you are trying to achieve.
My comment was not intended as a critisism of your post or your work, but an observation on how disassociated from reality life has become when we rely on an academic study to tell us what we should all know if we observe what goes on around us.
Our charity is not big on fundraising. There are large gaps in our knowledge base and we have a lot to learn. In many respects we spend so much time analysing fundraising ideas and rejecting them because they conflict with our sense of ethics, making us good at addressing our objects but poor at raising finances to expand our work.
I agree that many of our big charities seem to have taken a step away for common sense when it comes to fundraising material and projects they produce to support their work.
I suspect that the bigger a charity becomes, the more likely it is that control and direction is removed from the people who have a real understanding of the work and needs of the charity and becomes vested in a small adminstrative group who view the charities progress as a paper exercise, relying on statistics to influence the direction in which the charity is driven and prioritising the very existence of the charity over the work it carries out.
Thus, I suspect, we see a deviation in the content of fundraising material from the true purpose and work of the charity into a more bland representation of the adminsitrators understanding of how the charity is percieved by the public and how it meets targets that show it in the best light possible.
Lets face it – if a charities funds get low, something has to go and it may be admin jobs on the line when the ax falls.
You are right to try and inject a bit of common sense into the thinking of these folk. It should improve life for us all.
Hi Mike
I have to agree with you.
With bigger charities, I think their attitude is often awareness = good, no matter what the impact on the bottom line or the emotional impact on donors.
Your point about priortising the existence of the charity is absolutely spot on.
Thanks for reading and commenting. The more of us who push these arguments and show how successful alternative approaches are, the better for us all.
Mark