queer ideas

The case against the case for support

On the face of it, the case for support should be the key organisational tool for fundraisers, but having seen a fair number over my working life, I'd question how many are actually fit for purpose.

Tim Seiler, Director of the Fund Raising School at Indiana University and author of Developing Your Case for Support has provided my preferred definition of what we should expect from a case for support...

"The case statement focuses on or highlights factors that are critical in arguing for gift support and is typically tailored to reflect the needs and interests of the supporter being addressed."

Which leaves me wondering why do so many charities fail to take into account the reasons why donors give when preparing their own particular case? And instead end up creating an internally focused document that defines what the organisation does and why.

To me, that's not a case for support. It's the basis of a strategic plan. Not something that too many donors are interested in. Adrian Sargeant and Jen Shang describe this situation rather well in Fundraising Principles and Practice...

"Too often case expressions are written from the perspective of the organisation, containing jargon and reasons that make perfect sense to those working inside the organisation but that have little relevance for donors or others viewing the organisation from the outsider's perspective."

As a result of this internal focus, the case for support will often cover a huge raft of information, including need, core beliefs, vision, the role of the charity, the 'unique selling point', the personality, the key services and – if you are lucky – even a little on the role of the donor.

Try translating that into an effective fundraising offer whilst you're under the watchful eyes of your organisational brand police and you're in for some fun.

I don't understand why it has to be so complicated. If we look at some of the key elements and ask ourselves what they offer donors, I'm not sure if we'd come up with much of an answer.

Even need isn't that important.

Alex Spanos, is a U.S. Billionaire who each year gives millions to a whole range of different causes. When he was interviewed about how he chooses what to support, he placed need firmly into context.

"I never give because I think there is a need. There are lots of needs. I give because its a programme I'm interested in and I think I can make a real difference."

And he's right. Even when we feature life or death stories our DM recruitment response rates remain pitifully low.

I'm not saying we can forget need. Far from it. It is essential. But there is so much need, it's simply not a point of real differentiation.

Moving on to the vision. This obviously can be inspirational when handled well, but when given too little thought, it can also get in the way.

I remember a number of years ago, being presented with a new strategic direction for a charity. There was a new case for support and we were charged with making it work for fundraising.

As part of the process, we visited a number of projects to gather information to use in appeals. At each project, we asked to see examples of the new approach in action and every single person we met said the same thing, "We haven't started that work yet."

It was Henry Ford who said that "you can't build a reputation on what you're going to do." But we still had to get appeals out and I ended up producing packs that were written for two audiences – the comms team and the donor. I doubt either of them was really happy with what they received.

And when it comes to the old favourite of the 'unique selling point' (USP), charities often seem to focus on an attribute that's unique rather than one that will help to sell the cause. Just because a charity can identify one aspect of its work that other similar organisations aren't promoting, it doesn't mean it's a good idea to adopt it as a key strategic platform.

A USP only matters if it matters to the donor.

So what should a charity do when building a case for support for fundraising from individuals?

To start off, I'd recommend that any team working on this particular problem should write Tim Seiler's definition on the whiteboard and refer to it constantly throughout the process. I'd then suggest that three key areas are worth concentrating on.

1. What can you offer donors that other charities don't, can't or won't?

This obviously covers far more than the opportunity to tackle a need. We know that donors value some elements of their relationship with a charity above others. This should be our starting point and might include...

• The opportunity to see how their money has made a difference.
• A means to demonstrate to others what they believe in or are part of.
• The chance to fund a specific area of work.
• Direct access to those helped.
• Invites to social events.
• Control over the relationship and communications received.

This post is also worth a read.

2. How can you make your appeal as emotionally rewarding as possible?

This might require featuring a specific areas of work or certain beneficiaries – which when looking at any charity working with people, will normally be children. Unfortunately any other group rarely offers the emotional rewards of helping a child.

I'm not saying that it isn't impossible to build an effective case for support that focuses on adults. It's just very hard work. When Bluefrog built lendwithcare.com for CARE International as a means for people to directly fund entrepreneurs in developing countries it was the result of almost two years of extensive research and planning. The result is an inexpensive means to recruit donors with over 50% of all lenders donating to CARE as well. We also found ourselves on the receiving end of some significant corporate support.

We were rewarded by fundamentally changing the offer in response to what donors actually wanted from a charity.

3. How can you allow your donors to be part of the narrative?

You obviously want to build a relationship with donors that brings them closer to your charity. This has two key benefits. First it will help you raise more money and second, it might encourage your donors to want to learn more about your charity (which, funnily enough, is what your comms team actually wants).

So rather than focus on the macro-story of your organisation, try articulating your work through a series of micro-stories that people can become part of.

By identifying a small number of beneficiaries or staff who agree to help you demonstrate to donors what their money is doing you'll build a group that have a real stake in fundraising. Your focus will mean that the information you gather will be of a higher quality and the subsequent impact on the donors far greater.

Couple this with offering donors the chance to do a little more, such as sending beneficiaries greetings cards (as in the case of child sponsorship) and you'll find that loyalty and response rates significantly improve.

Which, at the end of the day, is what any good fundraising programme should have as its goal. And if your case for support isn't helping you achieve this perhaps it's time to have a look at the case for writing a new one.

Why don't people care as much as you?

When you are committed to a cause it's easy to think that the only reason other people don't feel the same is that they don't understand.

Your reaction might be to bombard them with evidence – facts, figures, statistics  – anything that supports your position.

The only trouble is that this is exactly the sort of information that is likely to act as a barrier to your unengaged prospects.

Though your most committed supporters might be happy to wade through an avalanche of information, few others have the interest or the time.

Instead, they want you to do the hard work for them and provide an arresting and emotionally rewarding route in to your charity.

This facet of human nature was neatly summarised in diagramatic form by a chap called Poliakov in his Pyramid of Engagement published by the CoFSiM Research Centre.

So rather than than trying to create a 'rational' argument for your next mailing pack, focus on moving someone emotionally instead.

If you need some statistics to back this up, you can find them here.

Protect the donor

We all know the old adage, look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves, but it should probably be extended to supporters too. Because if we take care of our donors, we won't need to worry about income targets.

That might sound brave or foolish (or both), but following the launch of Animal Protector for WSPA, it should ring true.

Animal Protector has been built using Bluefrog's uSpace donor loyalty engine. If you'd like to know how uSpace works, I featured it in this previous post and others have mentioned it too.

Animal Protector was created in response to WSPA's desire to improve donor retention. It aims to build a relationship with regular givers by showing them exactly how their donations are protecting animals. Through regular updates, supporters can see projects unfold and get to know some of the animals they care so much about.

But more importantly, it gives people a chance to interact with WSPA and define themselves as supporters – in a way that works best for them.

Because if there is one thing we've learned as we've moved from the first generation of uSpace to the second, is that choice is important to donors. But not in the way that many people might think.

WSPA works with a wide range of animals in many different parts of the world, and it seems obvious that one way to enhance a donor's relationship with the charity is to allow them to choose to fund work that benefits a favourite species.

It's obvious. But it's wrong. Donors may have a preference, but that doesn't mean they want to fund work that only benefits that type of animal (if they did, there are many species-specific charities they could easily discover on Google).

By choosing one specific creature, donors have to say no to others. And that can make people feel uncomfortable, particularly when their primary aim is to stop cruelty to ALL animals.

So rather than ask people to choose just one project, we gave them the opportunity to align themsleves with their favourite animal in a different way – by customising their Animal Protector site.

When people sign up, they are presented with different menus, one of which allows them to choose their masthead...

 

 

I've chosen a cow, but if people prefer a bear or a dog, they can choose that header instead. All the time knowing that they are helping all animals...

 

As you'll see, the logo also changes to match donor choice. It's based on a human thumbprint, but developed to represent each animal through the use of the relevant paw or footprint. Donors can use this as their default avatar, but many are uploading pictures of their own pets or animals they have seen in the wild. We've examples of everything from dogs to bears, to ducks to tortoises. And, shock horror, some donors are even uploading photographs of themselves. It's going to be very interesting to look at how the type of avatar relates to giving behaviour.

But choice doesn't stop there. Supporters can also choose a travel wallet or keyring that publicly demonstrates their commitment.

And those people who don't think that donors are interested in these devices, might be interested to hear that over 90% of donors who are signing up are actively requesting them.

And of course, donors can share their opinions too. Each post is accompanied by a growing list of comments. This is perhaps the most exciting (and rewarding) part of the project as donors are showing just how much they value being an Animal Protector and the the insight that goes with it.

A comment from one particular supporter, that summed up the sentiment behind many of the thoughts being shared, simply said...

"Thankyou to those in the midst of this wonderful rescue work for their dedication to animals that come in to their care. The animals can't say "thank you" themselves so I will say it for them. They send you lots of love."

However, I've left the best to last. The site has only been live for a week or two, and has already attracted thousands of supporters. But one of the most interesting side-effects of offering this combination of self-definition and in-depth feedback has been the number of people who have upgraded.

When we launched the site, we simply wanted to get as many people as possible to join. But donors have been so happy to know their money is making such a big difference that almost 8% of current regular givers who signed-up have chosen to upgrade their gift without even being asked.

See what I mean about income targets looking after themselves?

If you'd like to know more, why don't you sign up for yourself and see just how rewarding being an Animal Protector can be? Just click here to find out more.

Putting the power of mums to work

Nick Clegg is off to the UN Summit in New York at the end of September and Save The Children want to put some pressure on him to encourage world leaders to refocus their efforts to ensure we achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Getting help from 100,000 people to nudge him in the right direction through signing a petition is part of their plan and they have decided that some influential UK parenting blogs could be a good recruiting round.

So they have invited three prominent bloggers: Josie from Sleep Is For The Weak, Sian from Mummy Tips and Eva from Nixd Minx to fly out and see what the charity is doing in Bangladesh. All three will obviously be speaking to mothers and children about their lives, hopes and fears and sharing their experiences on their blogs.

And through their blogs, they'll encourage their readers to get involved by signing the petition, donating money and giving unwanted clothes and household goods to their local Save the Children shop.

Some tweeters with huge followings like Neil Gaiman and Stephen Fry have already starting promoting the campaign (known as #blogadesh) and are generating some significant traffic.

But it will really kick off when the bloggers start writing about what they see. When someone you know and trust as a source of advice and inspiration starts talking about poverty, it's going to be more relevant, more motivating and more engaging that just seeing an advertising banner asking for help.

There's been some interesting research in the last few years in neuro-cognitive science that helps explain why this is the case. In short, if we see someone experience an emotion - anger, joy or sadness – the same neurons spark in our brain as if we were experiencing it ourselves.

It's one of the fundamental donor needs. We are driven to be sociable. We need to belong. And it's empathy which is the primary driver behind that need.

Rather than make you trawl through 1,500 words on the latest scientific research that backs up this claim, I've found this great animated video from the RSA where Jeremy Rifkin explains it far more effectively (and entertainingly) than I ever could.

As you'll see, new technology is changing the way we think about our fellow human beings. We are now extending our identities far beyond national and religious boundaries.

As a result, we are able to directly relate to people's suffering on a far more personal level - as mothers for instance – and do something that is becoming increasing clear that we psychologically need to do - offer help.

That's why I think Save The Children's approach is so exciting – it directly taps deep into our psyche and, as a result, I expect the outcome should be very rewarding for everyone who's involved - not just the people being helped in Bangladesh.

For more more details on donor needs take a look at this previous post.

Thanks to @charityclare for the heads up.

Are your donors simply paying spectators?

There's a great video on Social Hallucinations produced by David Gauntlet from Making is Connecting.

David looks at everyday creativity and writes about seeing a cultural shift - from a sit back and be told one to a making and doing one.

So what's this got to do with fundraising?

Quite a lot.

Something that we repeatedly find people mention in our research at Bluefrog is a sense of disappointment with charities. They enter into a relationship with an organisation in the hope that they are going to be an active part of something good. What they receive is a stream of communications talking about what the charity is doing and requests for money.

Disillusioned and unengaged, they soon stop their support (This behaviour is often incorrectly described as lapsing).

But when people can actively do something more than sit back and give, they create cultural capital that benefits them as much as the charities they support.

An example of this is craftivism.

And an example of craftivism is Save the Children's Knit One, Save One campaign. This generated over half a million knitted hats for newborn babies in developing countries. It was also responsible for generating 50,000 messages that were delivered to Gordon Brown encouraging him to do more to help prevent deaths among children.

Save the Children isn't unique. When you think about it, there are a number of examples of this type of engagement already offered by charities.

Child sponsorship provides donors with an opportunity to write (and receive letters). Kiva enables people to help set-up new businesses (and see how they are performing). Care International offers supporters the chance to send advice and good wishes along with educational materials to school children in developing countries.

Organisations that fill the gap between giving cash and full-time volunteering are benefiting from the desire people have to create and connect. It doesn't matter if this is done on-line or off-line, but by giving people the chance to create change rather than simply be paying spectators, we offer them a welcome opportunity to add meaning to their world AND move it in the direction many of us would like.

That's the sort of approach that drives real engagement. It's an idea that I find really exciting. If you've got a few minutes to spare, you should really watch this video.

Show donors what they can do. Not what they can't

When it comes to creating appeals, there is a natural assumption that high numbers generate high levels of income.

If many thousands of people are at risk or in danger, logic would dictate that donors will give more money than if just one person is affected.

And this seems to be the practice that many charities follow. Take a look at any emergency ad and you'll probably see the size of the task featured in the first paragraph – 280,000 people forced from their homes, thousands buried alive and 23 million facing life threatening shortages of food.

These ads, from three great organisations probably raised significant sums. But there is a growing body of research that shows featuring such large numbers serves to suppress response rates, perhaps reducing the effectiveness of these essential fundraising tools.

By presenting unimaginable levels of need we make people feel helpless. Such large numbers don't convey need or increase urgency. They simply serve to remind donors of the people that they can't help.

Combating helplessness is one of the key need states that donors experience. And by helping them tackle it, we can dramatically increase the amount of money we raise.

I learned this lesson back when I worked at ActionAid. We were running a new set of ads to recruit child sponsors. One execution that had performed well in research wasn't working on the page. It featured a photograph of a young Nepalese girl, Kumari, holding her baby sister.

We swapped the photograph to another of Kumari and ran the ad again. This time she was on her own. The response rate immediately hit the expected target.

Same design, same copy, same child.

I wasn't 100% sure if it was featuring just Kumari that had improved the response rate – facial expression had a role to play too. But subsequent tests and research demonstrated the effectiveness of focusing on one person in appeal communications.

Dr. Paul Slovic offers some examples of these studies in a fascinating webinar from The Communications Network.

In it he presents the "Collapse of Compassion" model to describe the reduction in response rates when the number of people in need of help is increased.

One study that he refers to sums this up rather well. Three groups of people were each presented with a different communications asking them to help Save The Children.

• A factual letter full of statistics...

Food shortages in Malawi are effecting more than 3 million children.

• A letter about one girl, Rokia and the impact of the food shortages on her.

• A combined approach featuring both the statistics and Rokia's story.

The factual letter generated an average gift of $1.14, Rokia's letter generated an average gift of $2.38 and the combined approach generated $1.43.

He also describes a Swedish study that found the difference between featuring two children instead of one amounted to a reduction in income of approximately 15%.

There is plenty more to learn by listening to the complete webinar. Not least, you'll hear Paul's advice on what charities can do to improve their appeal results.

And that can be summed up very simply – show donors what they can do – not what they can't.

By focusing on the magnitude of problems we push donors away. By helping them combat their feelings of helplessness we will engage and involve them.

Click here to read more about the complete set of donor need states.