Giving makes you more sexy…

Giving makes you more sexy…

News (UK)

Ok…it’s not the headline that would appeal to the majority of donors but, more importantly, it might appeal to a large number of non-donors, says a new report that is exciting interest among people concerned with boosting giving.

The report,  The Aha: Why donors give, why non-donors don’t and what to do about it uses a powerful segmentation based on people’s motivations, which has proven useful in many industries. It shows that people in the different segments vary significantly in whether they give, how much they give, why they give and what they give to. Taking a marketing approach, it offers some conclusive evidence for the need for radically fresh donor appeals if we want to turn non-donors into donors. It also shows that those of us working in philanthropy are remarkably homogenous – so need to learn to appeal to people very different to ourselves.

Caroline Fiennes, who was prompted to write the report by  The Philanthropy Review, an independent group led by Tom Hughes-Hallett of Marie Curie Cancer Care with the aim of boosting giving, explains: “The research shows that most non-donors are in two segments– outer-directed (OD) people motivated by external factors such as the esteem of others [think: X Factor and How to Spend It]; and Sustenance Driven (SD) people who are concerned with safety and security and tend to be socially conservative [think: Woman & Home, and Volvos.]. Donors are mostly Inner Directed (ID people), fascinated by the world beyond themselves and ethics [think: Abel & Cole, and BBC 4].”

 “People act in ways that make them feel good about themselves. For outer-directed people, that means we have to ‘sell’ giving in a way that makes them feel they gain respect in the eyes of others. For  Sustenance Driven, we need to sell it in a way that makes them feel more secure. The data show that these groups are underrepresented in giving, so may be good hunting ground for new donors.”

 Does this mean donor appeals might have to be more shallow?

If we want non-donors to give, we have to sell it in a way that is attractive to them. So let’s show that giving is fun, or can be fashionable, or can be sociable. That may not work for us personally – but who are we to deride as shallow something that gets someone else to give? Would we rather be effective – and get new people to give – or sit around feeling righteous – and not get new people to give?   What we’ve been doing to date clearly has only worked up to a point, and to get beyond that point we need to do something else.

"Trying to get people to give more is trying to change their behaviour, which is marketing. Philanthropy can learn masses from commercial marketing”

Caroline Fiennes is well-placed to comment: her background is in commercial marketing, and philanthropy advice and she’s now Executive Director of Global Cool, a highly innovative charity which encourages greener living by ‘selling’ green lifestyle choices

Global Cool uses  lifestyle, fashion, film, music and sport to engage Outer Directed people who typically aren’t interested in the environment. “For example, we’ve succesfully persuaded people to turn their heating down in winter – a big source of carbon with which many other campaigns struggle – by making it a fashion issue:look how wonderful you can look in lovely warm knitwear... and using less heating is better for your skin!’,” says Fiennes.

It is a radically different approach, but that is what we need if we’re to reach beyond the already-converted.”

Fiennes has been inviting people in the philanthropy industry to see which segment they’re in. “We’re all exactly the same! Actually the three major groups [outlined above] each subdivide into four, making twelve in total, and every single one of the dozen or so philanthro-wonks who’ve done the test to date are in the same subdivision! No wonder our ideas have limited appeal. We need to go out of our way to design things that might not work for us.”

Take the test yourself: it takes about two minutes and is here.

Fiennes also says we need to make a better narrative around giving. “It needs to be more talkable. Most giving is silent and solitary. How dull is that? It needs to be something people want to talk about. There are plenty of good stories around giving that could be shared.

She also believes a ‘carrot’, not a ‘stick’ approach is needed in encouraging more donors.

The idea that removing barriers is sufficient to increase giving is not one I agree with. People do what they find interesting and attractive, and actually will overcome significant barriers if it’s attractive enough. Take the launch of the iPad2 – people slept out all night to get hold of it. Removing barriers isn’t enough.  To take an extreme example, there are no barriers preventing me murdering my elderly neighbour, but that’s not why I don’t do it. I don’t murder her because, for various reasons(!), it is not remotely appealing to me.

"Giving is like a discretionary purchase: it’s not a necessity for anybody. We can learn a lot from how, say, chocolate or jewellery are marketed. They work hard to make the ‘product’ attractive.”

In fact, says Fiennes the research indicates that a key barrier is all the Inner Directed people involved in charities, who may be deterring the other two groups – outer directed people and sustenance driven people.

In surveys, Outer Directed people say that they don’t feel they belong with other donors or volunteers. They’re right: they don’t. The other donors and volunteers are largely Inner Directed people, who are very different to them.

The research also shows that the segments choose very different causes. SDs prefer institutions such as hospitals and ex-service personnel; ODs choose ‘people’ causes, eg, children, deaf /blind, training organisations; and IDs are drawn to the environment, heritage, culture and international development.

Fiennes offers three suggestions for creating fresh approaches to communication around giving:

1. Reach out to each segment. Fish where the fish are: they go to different places, read different magazines, join different groups.

2. Make it desirable. Make giving more talkable, give people something to say on their Facebook status, make it more fun, more sociable – giving is often a totally silent activity - show people what their donation can achieve, make giving socially normal and avoid it feeling like a loss or a luxury.

3. Make it easy. Talking about the complexity of measuring results, for example, is great for inner directed people but probably scares others away.

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