Is there a dark side to Online Charity Contests?

Ian Wilhelm at the Chronicle of Philanthropy recently posted on 'The Dark Side of Online Charity Contests' - where he discussed potential downsides to online charity contests, such as staff distraction (as with much 'event' based fundraising, the return from the effort put in may be much less than the return from other fundraising activities) and the tendency that mainstream causes win (given they are in effect popularity contests).

However, if a charity has a clear focus on what outcomes they want through their participation, they can achieve tremendous results regardless of whether they end up with the financial prize. For instance, a current competition on Facebook is designed to focus on supporter involvement, rather than fundraising per se:

The small prize available reduces the incentive for large mainstream charities to focus on the competition and instead it is a forum where smaller, or less well-known, charities can feasibly mobilise their supporters to gain both presence as well as the potential for the prize.

As of the 19th December, the three leading charities were Hamlin Fistula International (from Australia); Corporación CreArte (from Chile); and the Australian Foundation for the Peoples of Asia and the Pacific. For these charities, the global awareness that has been created through their involvement in the competition, and the opportunity it provides to mobilise their supporters and increase their association with the charity, will be worth much more than $2,000.

Talking about your key beliefs increases charity support by 50%

Spending a few moments writing about your key beliefs or values will increase the likelihood you will agree to a subsequent request to support a charity by 50%. 

The work supporting this is presented in an article prepared for the Association of Consumer Research 2009 conference. Two researchers from the  Univerity of Iowa conducted a series of studies where consumers where asked to rank a series of values or principles depending on how important they were to them. The people in the test group were then asked to write about the value to them of the one they ranked as most important; the people in the control group were then asked to write about the value to other people of the one they ranked as least important. They were then asked to do a charity related action (donate or provide contact details for volunteering). In each study, the intention to support a charity-related ask was increased by 50%:

Study 1: Ask - want to make a monthly donation to the Red Cross?

Test group: 59% 

Control group: 41%

Likelihood that this increase occurred just to due chance: only 1 in 16

Study 2: Ask - provide email address to the Red Cross so they could help in a crisis?

Test group: 60% 

Control group: 40%

Likelihood that this increase occurred just to due chance: only 1 in 16

Study 3: Ask - provide email address to a charity so they could help people in end-stage disease?

Test group: 62% 

Control group: 38%

Likelihood that this increase occurred just to due chance: only 1 in 20

Details are here: http://bit.ly/72jnqd

So, in our interactions with donors, do we give them the opportunity to spend time writing about something important to them (not to us)?

Using the example of others to increase donations dramatically

Donations can be increased dramatically by providing examples of previous donors. Two research papers I've read recently - one from 2008, the other from 30 years previously, in 1979 - both came to the same conclusion: providing a donor with an example of a previous donation, from a person they can relate themselves to, dramatically increases the funds raised. The procedure is simple: before making the ask, provide the prospect with examples of high donations made by people similar to themselves.


The papers approach the issue and the theory behind the effect from quite different angles, however the value of the approach is clear in both.


The 1979 experiment examined adding one or more of the following to a face-to-face donation ask made to university students:

1. The names and amounts given by previous donors (using either 4 or 7 names, and both with either low or high value gifts)
2. A statement linking the student to the beneficiaries of the gift

The results were dramatic (the table shows total funds raised as a % of the control, a straight ask):

 

Straight ask		No example	Low example	High example
	No example	100%
	4 previous donors		172%	193%
	7 previous donors		209%	300%
Related ask		No example	Low example	High example
	No example	209%
	4 previous donors		181%	324%
	7 previous donors		198%	424%

That is, compared to a simple ask, showing the prospect a list of 7 donors similar to themselves, who were shown having made high gifts, increased the total funds raised 3-fold (from a combination of a 50% increase in response rate and a 100% increase in average gift).

Linking the prospect to the beneficiaries (in this case, where the ask was for the Heart Foundation, the link was to say that the people saved may be people the student knew) also doubled the funds raised. Adding in 7 high-value examples doubled the response again, to 4 times that of the control!

The 2008 paper examined the use of a single matched donor (the specific comparison used was using a high-value example from someone of the same sex, versus a high value example from someone of the other sex). Simply matching the challenge donor increased the funds raised by 35%. The effect was more pronounced when the prospect was focussed on other people (their matched or challenge donor group) rather than focussing on themselves.

So: 2 papers, 30 years apart, from completely different viewpoints. Both very clearly supporting the value of getting the prospect to identify strongly with a peer group who have made high gifts. It may be very difficult to extrapolate out of the very specific situations in these papers, but that 35% to 300% increase is very tempting ...

You'd better come Sal, Andy's collapsed

"I think Andy’s legacy is that he’s shown people that it’s really important to give while you can" - these are the moving words of Sally, a young mum who lost her husband Andy due to a massive heart attack. Andy's story; and that of Sally and their children Dom, Belle, Finn and Millie; formed the core of the Heart Foundation's Christmas mail campaign this year.

Their poignant story struck a chord with the supporters of the Heart Foundation - who responded not only financially, but also by spreading the story (and the need to support the Foundation) to their friends and family. Read the comments posted in response to Mia Freedman's blog and the ask yourself - will your donors be so affected by your communications this Christmas that they will be moved to spread your message to everyone they meet?

http://mamamia.com.au/weblog/2009/12/guest-post-youd-better-come-sal-andys-collapsed.html

Asking about intentions can have unexpected effects ...

We all know the value of a prompting question like "do you see yourself as someone who helps people in need?" in increasing the likelihood of subsequent action.

However, sometimes these can have the reverse effect - according to a study investigating the effect of questions about future behaviour (When Does the Past Repeat Itself? The Role of Self-Prediction and Norms), asking a high-volume user can actually reduce the behaviour (a crude example could be: asking a frequent donor "do they donate to charity?" actually causing a decrease in the frequency of their donations).

It seems that in these cases the question actually highlights to the individual the fact of their high-volume activity (frequent donations) and this self-awarenss then causes them to reconsider (so the effect of the question, on high-frequency donors, would be to reduce their frequency of donation).

So: use data to inform when you should use leading questions, as well as using it to determine what question to ask.

Will DotSpots transform not-for-profit activism?

The rapid propagation and appreciation of breaking news has been a transformative use of the internet. Use of hashtags and key words assists people in gaining an overall picture of the news stream, however it is still an arduous task.

Will DotSpots transform how we individually access the news - and how we spread the news to and from our activists? From the creator of BizRate and Shopzilla, Farhad Mohit, DotSpots aims to provide a method for 'distributed objects of thought' to be posted, linked and refined using the wisdom of crowds.

Farhad's interview with Knowledge@Wharton provides some background - but go to http://dotspots.com to decide for yourself.

Do you use insights from you major donors to grow total fundraising?

On the commercial side, insights from what attracts the highest-volume consumers can be used to grow overall product sales. Do you use your high-volume consumers - the major donors to your cause - to provide insights on improving your proposition and overall response?


In a blog post at Harvard Business Publishing, Eddie Yoon presents the benefits that companies have obtained from applying insights into what drives their highest-volume consumers to buy. They took these insights and applied them to their general marketing approach, growing sales across all their segments by 20-40%.


Will using insights into why your major donors give enable you to focus your proposition and grow your fundraising across your donor base?

Will social media make a difference for your campaign?

Research from the Marketing Science Institute (Opinion Leadership and Social Contagion in New Product Diffusion) gives some guidance on when a social media focus may make a dramatic difference for your campaign. My take home messages were:

• think about whether the topic and the audience lends itself to social contagion
• focus your efforts on individuals who are highly active in the area, or who are seen as key influencers (even by themselves!)

The authors' conclusions included:


Social marketing will only have a major 'contagion' effect if at least one of the following applies:

1. The nature of the topic means the target audience would seek other people's opinions about it; &/or
2. The target audience are by nature susceptible to peer group influence (eg, teenagers); &/or
3. The target audience are susceptible to 'keeping up with the neighbours' urges; &/or 
4. Traditional media is only going to have a minor effect.

If one of these applies, then investing in a social media focus on key influencers can be worthwhile (in this study, converting one key influencer was just as valuable as direct pitches to 185 'average' people). Each of the following were valuable influencers:

1. People who are already highly active in the specific area
2. People who self-report themselves as 'key influencers'
3. People who are referred to as key influencers by normal members of the target audience (identifiable by linkages)

The authors (Raghuram Iyengar, Christophe Van den Bulte, and Thomas W. Valente) looked at the real-world effects of opinion leaders on the adoption of a new product (a pharmaceutical).