Every time a donor makes a decision to support a particular charity or to ignore their request the reasons underlying this decision are in some ways specific to their affiliation with that charity and their perception of the charity’s needs. However, it is also likely that there exist a variety of overarching motivations which the donor considers, consciously and unconsciously, every time they are presented with an invitation to give.
In order to throw some light on the general factors that are likely to influence an evangelical donor’s ‘give/not give’ decisions, we asked participants of our Christian Giving survey to tell us which of 14 potential reasons would feature in their thinking about whether or not to support a charity. The responses outlined in Table 4.1 offer several helpful insights.
Why do evangelicals give to charities?
2009 (%)
The charity offers a free gift in return for a donation 1%
The charity is promoted by a celebrity you like 3%
The charity might help you in the future 4%
The charity has helped people that you care about 4%
The charity helps you feel good about yourself 7%
The charity has presence in conferences and festivals 7%
The charity's appeals are very moving 8%
The charity offers convenient ways for giving 16%
The charity's work is covered in the Christian press 21%
The charity is recommended by friends 22%
The charity offers involvement in interesting work 43%
The charity helps people in an area of interest to you 50%
The donors has first-hand experience of a charity's work 73%
The charity is trustworthy and transparent about money 78%
Table 4.1.
As you can see from the data in Table 4.1 the most compelling reasons for giving are: trust in a charity’s effectiveness and transparency about how the money is used (78%), followed by donor’s having first-hand experience of a charity’s work (73%) and personal interest in the people or the area where the charity is helping (50%).
The factors that appear to motivate relatively few people include: receiving free gifts, endorsements by celebrities, an expectation of receiving help from the charity in the future, or the fact that the charity has helped someone the donor cares about.
While conducting market research projects for Christian charity clients we have learned that while Christian celebrities (e.g. respected Bible teachers, writers, artists, pastors, etc.) might not have the ability to cause a donation, their endorsements count a great deal when it comes to getting a potential donor’s attention.
So, when a Christian celebrity endorses a charity at a Christian event or, when they speak on behalf of that charity to potential donors, they make it possible for the promotional messages of that charity to receive a hearing in a crowded and competitive marketplace.
However, the credibility of the celebrity does not get transferred to the charity in the longer term. If the donor has made a gift or signed a standing order form because of the prompting from a celebrity they will in time evaluate the charity themselves in terms of trustworthiness and transparency.
Another way we interpreted this data is by grouping the responses under six categories. The category that emerged as the front-runner was that which related to a high match between the charity’s areas of work and the priorities and interests of donors (93%), followed by trustworthiness of the charity (78%) and having first hand experience of its work (73%).
Next were the charity’s marketing efforts (52%) followed by endorsements by others (24%) and personal benefits (16%).
Here are some useful questions to consider if you are working for a Christian charity:
1. Wwhat do you know about the priorities and interests of your donors?
2. How are you using that information to shape your fundraising
communications?
3. In what ways are you communicating to current and potential donors the
fact that your charity is trustworthy and accountable?
4. What have you got in place to offer donors firsthand experience of
your charity's work? If they can't travel to the mission field in what
ways can you bring a taste of the mission field to them?
Tuesday 22 March 2011
Monday 7 March 2011
What are the ingredients of a successful e-newsletter?
Following on from the previous blog post here are a few tips for creating newsletters that will attract and retain your charity’s supporters.
Offer news items that are interesting to your charity’s donors. Note here that I said news items that are interesting to donors not to you! What you find fascinating is not likely what donors might find fascinating. So, the first step is to make sure that you are listening to your donors and you are discovering what they find interesting.
For example, donors to a charity helping teachers in Africa might be interested to know what happened at the training days for local teachers in Sierra Leone. How many teachers attended? What did they learn? How are they planning to use that knowledge in their schools etc? – This is the project you told donors about a couple of months ago and asked for their support – this a news item you might want to include in your e-newsletter to offer feedback on how this project impacted lives.
You might also want to share some news or statistics that highlight the types of problems you are trying to tackle, stories and comments from the people you are helping, a photo album featuring one of your projects etc.
Do some research, see how other charities in your field are sharing news and relating to donors online and work out how you can do the same. Bookmark or monitor RSS feeds from useful websites to receive information to help you craft better e-newsletters.
Use case studies. Most of your charity’s supporters don’t really understand the complex problems or issues you might be trying to tackle. What’s more they are not likely to give money to an abstract cause. So, if you want more people to engage with your cause use real life stories about how your charity is helping people.
Build e-newsletters around one of your real life stories and make sure you let your field workers or beneficiaries tell the story in their own words. You can position the story in such a way that your donors are included too – by reminding them that they helped make the change happen through their gifts and prayers.
Offer some spiritual insights or advice to your readers. A Christian charity can use an e-newsletter to bless its supporters by offering them some spiritual encouragement in the form of short Bible based reflections. These could be spiritual lessons that the leaders of the charity or missionaries have learnt during field trips, answers to prayers and much more.
Charities that are working in areas of education or healthcare too can offer their e-newsletter readers and supporters some specific advice or, ideas about issues that might concern them.
Make e-newsletters interactive. There is nothing more boring than being bombarded with information and not given a chance to participate. The growth of social media has broken the power of monologue and has given readers a voice. So rather than shunning this trend you should use it for your charity’s benefit.
You can do this by including a quick poll relating to a specific topic that your charity is addressing or to get donor’s opinions on specific initiatives. Many people love to have their voice heard, even if only through a quick vote, and they love to hear how others view an issue.
Make your e-newsletters fun. Many charities have a serious tone in their communications, but being serious doesn’t mean having no sense of humour. Add some humour to your charity’s e-newsletters and updates by including a photo caption competition, a funny cartoon, a link to an odd website, a trivia question, a quote of the day or something else that is likely to amuse your readers.
You are welcome to share your ideas here if you think of any others....
Offer news items that are interesting to your charity’s donors. Note here that I said news items that are interesting to donors not to you! What you find fascinating is not likely what donors might find fascinating. So, the first step is to make sure that you are listening to your donors and you are discovering what they find interesting.
For example, donors to a charity helping teachers in Africa might be interested to know what happened at the training days for local teachers in Sierra Leone. How many teachers attended? What did they learn? How are they planning to use that knowledge in their schools etc? – This is the project you told donors about a couple of months ago and asked for their support – this a news item you might want to include in your e-newsletter to offer feedback on how this project impacted lives.
You might also want to share some news or statistics that highlight the types of problems you are trying to tackle, stories and comments from the people you are helping, a photo album featuring one of your projects etc.
Do some research, see how other charities in your field are sharing news and relating to donors online and work out how you can do the same. Bookmark or monitor RSS feeds from useful websites to receive information to help you craft better e-newsletters.
Use case studies. Most of your charity’s supporters don’t really understand the complex problems or issues you might be trying to tackle. What’s more they are not likely to give money to an abstract cause. So, if you want more people to engage with your cause use real life stories about how your charity is helping people.
Build e-newsletters around one of your real life stories and make sure you let your field workers or beneficiaries tell the story in their own words. You can position the story in such a way that your donors are included too – by reminding them that they helped make the change happen through their gifts and prayers.
Offer some spiritual insights or advice to your readers. A Christian charity can use an e-newsletter to bless its supporters by offering them some spiritual encouragement in the form of short Bible based reflections. These could be spiritual lessons that the leaders of the charity or missionaries have learnt during field trips, answers to prayers and much more.
Charities that are working in areas of education or healthcare too can offer their e-newsletter readers and supporters some specific advice or, ideas about issues that might concern them.
Make e-newsletters interactive. There is nothing more boring than being bombarded with information and not given a chance to participate. The growth of social media has broken the power of monologue and has given readers a voice. So rather than shunning this trend you should use it for your charity’s benefit.
You can do this by including a quick poll relating to a specific topic that your charity is addressing or to get donor’s opinions on specific initiatives. Many people love to have their voice heard, even if only through a quick vote, and they love to hear how others view an issue.
Make your e-newsletters fun. Many charities have a serious tone in their communications, but being serious doesn’t mean having no sense of humour. Add some humour to your charity’s e-newsletters and updates by including a photo caption competition, a funny cartoon, a link to an odd website, a trivia question, a quote of the day or something else that is likely to amuse your readers.
You are welcome to share your ideas here if you think of any others....
Sunday 6 March 2011
What are the benefits of sending e-newsletters?
Everybody is doing e-newsletters these days. You are probably receiving them from companies you purchased products from, from charities, from friends or family members in the mission field, from your church, from consultants like us, radio stations and much more.
Inbox clutter – a term that did not even exist a few years ago, is now becoming a real issue. And, many of us are discovering the usefulness of the DELETE button. But, we don’t delete all emails we receive – as a matter of fact we enjoy reading some of them and use ideas or advice we get from others.
What we are likely to delete are emails we don’t find interesting, useful or did not ask to receive, like spam or mass mailings. The same can be said for people who receive your charity’s e-newsletters.
The bad news is that the majority of people who receive your emails might not be reading them right now. But, the good news is that you can change this situation by writing better e-newsletters that can be opened and read by your constituents.
Here is a quick list of benefits I have identified but you might think of others too:
1. E-newsletters can enable your charity to strengthen relationships with supporters and retain them for the long term. Inspired donors are more likely to keep giving rather than those who have not heard from you for a long time.
2. E-newsletters can help strengthen your charity’s brand and position your charity in the supporters’ minds as an organisation on the forefront of fighting poverty, making a difference to young people, or doing whatever your charity’s mission is.
3. E-newsletters can help you send timely messages and updates about your work as soon as you receive such news. Donors don’t have to wait for months until your next schedules magazine to hear about the launch of a new initiative, to respond to an emergency appeal for helping people in a disaster area, or to pray for a particular situation. An e-newsletter can help you get the message out to donors quickly before it becomes old news.
4. Sending emails to large numbers of people is more cost effective than sending direct mail and if your mailing list recipients respond to your calls to action you are likely to get much higher returns on investment (ROIs).
5. E-mail updates or newsletters are easy to create especially when you are using a hosted email sevice like Vertical Response (which is free for charities).
6. You can measure the impact of your e-newsletters and drive traffic to different parts of your charity’s websites, blogs, social networking sites, etc. You can also cultivate stronger relationships with people who are reading your emails because you know who they are.
Inbox clutter – a term that did not even exist a few years ago, is now becoming a real issue. And, many of us are discovering the usefulness of the DELETE button. But, we don’t delete all emails we receive – as a matter of fact we enjoy reading some of them and use ideas or advice we get from others.
What we are likely to delete are emails we don’t find interesting, useful or did not ask to receive, like spam or mass mailings. The same can be said for people who receive your charity’s e-newsletters.
The bad news is that the majority of people who receive your emails might not be reading them right now. But, the good news is that you can change this situation by writing better e-newsletters that can be opened and read by your constituents.
Here is a quick list of benefits I have identified but you might think of others too:
1. E-newsletters can enable your charity to strengthen relationships with supporters and retain them for the long term. Inspired donors are more likely to keep giving rather than those who have not heard from you for a long time.
2. E-newsletters can help strengthen your charity’s brand and position your charity in the supporters’ minds as an organisation on the forefront of fighting poverty, making a difference to young people, or doing whatever your charity’s mission is.
3. E-newsletters can help you send timely messages and updates about your work as soon as you receive such news. Donors don’t have to wait for months until your next schedules magazine to hear about the launch of a new initiative, to respond to an emergency appeal for helping people in a disaster area, or to pray for a particular situation. An e-newsletter can help you get the message out to donors quickly before it becomes old news.
4. Sending emails to large numbers of people is more cost effective than sending direct mail and if your mailing list recipients respond to your calls to action you are likely to get much higher returns on investment (ROIs).
5. E-mail updates or newsletters are easy to create especially when you are using a hosted email sevice like Vertical Response (which is free for charities).
6. You can measure the impact of your e-newsletters and drive traffic to different parts of your charity’s websites, blogs, social networking sites, etc. You can also cultivate stronger relationships with people who are reading your emails because you know who they are.
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