The feelgood factor – lessons from psychology
Howard Lake | 8 July 2009 | News
We can take lessons from psychology and use them to improve levels of giving in a way that makes people feel better about offering support to our organisations.
In a session at the Institute of Fundraising National Convention, Adrian Sargeant told delegates how research had shown that different ‘social information’ can incentivise people to give more.
The research was carried out with public radio stations in the US. It tested different approaches to donors who were ringing in to pledge support (rather akin to the Children in Need appeal in the UK on BBC radio stations).
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People giving for the first time were told that someone else had just given either $75, $180 or $300 against a control group who were not given this information. Those told of the gift gave significantly more than those who were not.
However, there are cut off points beyond which people lose the incentive to keep up with the Joneses. In one test, the control gift was $121, those who were told a gift of $500 had been given gave an average of $172, but those who were told a gift of $1,000 had been given only gave an average of $146.
Matching the gender of the previous donor with the one calling also increased the gift by around 30 per cent.
Looking at it from the ‘moral’ point of view produced interesting results. Using words such as ‘generous’, ‘caring’, ‘caring’ made more than 10 per cent difference to the amount given by women – but none at all to the gift from men.
We tend to use this sort of language in thank you letters, Sargeant said. “But this is too late. We should be using it just at the point we are asking them to give.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.