queer ideas

Does religion make people nicer?

Take any mainstream charity and you'll find that a significant number of people on the supporter base regularly attend a place of worship.

But does that mean religious people are nicer than everyone else?

After reading Deepak Malhorta's study on religious salience, it seems the answer might be sometimes - particularly if that time happens to be a Sunday.

Professor Malhorta undertook a study that looked at the factors that might encourage participants in an online charitable auction to continue bidding.

The experiment was based on sending two different kinds of emails to the participants. The 'charitable' email included the following message...

"We hope you will continue to support this charity by keeping the bidding alive. Every extra dollar you bid in the auction helps us accomplish our very special mission."

A second email, encouraged people to bid again with a 'competitive' message...

"The competition is heating up! If you hope to win, you will have to bid again. Are you up for the challenge?"

The results showed that religious people were more likely than non-religious people to respond to an appeal 'for charity' but only on the day that they attended their place of worship. On other days of the week there was no discernible difference between the two groups.

 

The 'competitive' email was more effective on religious bidders than non-religious bidders, but there was no 'Sunday effect'.

So, in short, it seems attending a religious service primes people to respond to a request for help from a charity. That might help explain why our ads in the Sunday press normally tend to work better than those run during the week.

You can download Professor Malhotra's paper here (PDF).

Face to face attrition - a few thoughts

We have another chance to quantify the effects of the recession with the publication of the PFRA Face to Face Attrition Survey.

The study shows us what happened to those donors recruited on the street and door to door during 2009.

The figures look good.

• Average 1st year attrition for street campaigns fell back to 44.2% (from 53.3% in 2008). This is the lowest level of street attrition that the PFRA has ever recorded.
• Average 1st year attrition for door to door fell back to 37.2% (from 41.8% in 2008).

But the report leaves me asking a number of questions.

2009 was the height of the recession so I have difficulty believing the reference in the PFRA press release that the reduction in attrition rates is a post-recession phenomenon.

Let's start by comparing the PFRA figures to those released by Rapidata in their 2011 Direct Debit (DD) tracking report. As you'll see, 2009 is the first year where face to face techniques return a better attrition rate than that seen for (a massive percentage) of the entire UK DD universe.

When you take into account the fact that most DDs are cancelled in the first few months, it shows the PFRA figures in a very positive light. Something good is happening. But what?

Lets take it point by point...

Where are the no pays?

It doesn't look as though no pays have been included in the calculations (a no pay is a DD that doesn't result in a single gift). No pay rates have been increasing over the years. For example, back in 2004, face to face agencies recruited an extra 14% of donors at no charge (to replace no pays).The guarantee today is significantly higher. 

The figures released by the PFRA show a first month attrition rate of about 11 or 12% - much lower than the current no pay rate. Add the two together and we may find about a third of all recruits are giving once – or not at all – before throwing in the towel.

If that's the case, the figures would still show an improving trend. They just wouldn't be so good.

It would be interesting to know what no pays actually are. Anecdotally I've heard that they are running at over 20%, but I'd like to have the actual figures to confirm.

What was the impact of the closure of Dialogue Direct?

Dialogue Direct was one of the UK's largest face to face recruitment agencies. It closed in 2009. As a result of this, the total number of people recruited via face to face techniques fell by 115,000 between 08/09 and 09/10. In one fell swoop there was much less pressure on the market and the remaining players could concentrate on recruiting at the best sites.

There would also be another positive impact on attrition. With many face to face recruiters out of work, there would be more competition for employment, with the cream of the recruiters rising to the top.

Did the 2008 jump in attrition rates frighten away the charities with less sophisticated fundraising programmes?

As the Fundraising Detective has pointed out, there is a huge disparity in attrition rates for different charities. If the charities with the worst attrition management campaigns were driven from the market, this would have a positive impact on overall cancellation rates.

Long time readers of this blog will know that I think the most important way of tackling face to face attrition is by improving stewardship programmes. I've blogged about how Buefrog tests have shown that personal treatment and a focus on impact reporting have dramatically improved face to face attrition rates.

It might be shocking but the fall in attrition could be down to the fact that we are getting better at communicating with younger donors?

Is there more focus on recruiting older donors?

On the other side of the coin, we've known for some time that the biggest infuence on attrition is age. Older donors are much more likley to keep their promises. Following the bad results in 2008 has there been more emphasis on avoiding students and the young unemployed?

Is there more focus on recruiting donors at lower gift levels?

The other major influence on attrition is gift amount. The higher the monthly gift, the more likley it is to be cancelled. If the 'ask' amount is dropped, attrition might also fall, but so does income. The result could be less attrition but also less money being raised.

Or is it down to something else?

I'm especially pleased that Adrian Sargeant is reviewing the figures. Hopefully he'll answer these questions and probably come up with a few insights that haven't occurred to the rest of us. That's one reason to look forward to the autumn when we'll see their publication.

Finally a big thanks to all those involved for taking the time and effort to share such great information. The rest of the fundraising profession could take a leaf from their book.

Donors don't like giving when it doesn't feel good

Face to face donor recruitment is back in the spotlight following the publication of a survey that reported 44% of respondents thought chugging was the most aggressive form of fundraising.

The PFRA was quick to respond, questioning the validity of the sample, the questions and the results.

I have some sympathy with their point of view.

As we've seen from the recent FRSB annual report, it takes thousands of face to face solicitations to generate an actual complaint. So it's worth taking a minute or two to ask what this research actually tells us?

Unfortunately, I don't have a full set of tables, but the details provided by Third Sector and Fundraising magazine show:

• When asked which technique was the most aggressive form of fundraising...

– 54% chose doorstep campaigners

– 44% chose high street chuggers

– 43% chose telephone calls to the home

• 39.7% said that they had stopped supporting a charity because of the way it tried to raise funds.
• 60% said 'chuggers' had put them off supporting the charity they were representing.

I agree with the PFRA that this isn't a representative sample – but that doesn't mean the respondents aren't donors. Far from it. The survey was featured on easyfundraising.org.uk (a shopping site that ensures that a donation is made to a charity every time you buy something via one of their links).

It appears most users are recruited via charity partners, social networks and old-fashioned PR. As such, I'd think that the self-selecting respondents (70% of whom are women) are more likely to be active donors than we'd find amongst a sample that was representative of the UK population. On that basis, I wouldn't be surprised if the age-profile was significantly older than average.

Even so, I was surprised so many of the respondents described face to face recruitment as aggressive. 

Adrian Sargeant, back in 2003, actually found that most people who signed up to a charity through a face to face interaction reported a high level of satisfaction with the process of recruitment.

And the donors (and non-donors) we've spoken to about face to face recruitment in the last few years have never shown any concern about aggression. People have described recruiters as annoying, irritating or even as 'creepy', but none said they were aggressive.

The real problem with such a simple approach to assessing opinion is that that no matter the reality of people's experiences of being asked for a gift, the method of asking that most intruded into a donor's personal space was always going to be ranked according to whatever negative characteristic that was on offer – in this case aggression.

Focusing on aggression seems a rather odd, arbitrary, decision. If anything, the emotions that bother people the most when being asked are to do with embarrassment, not knowing how to say no, being inconvenienced by the interruption. Nothing to do with the emotions we associate with the results of aggression - such as intimidation or hostility. They asked the wrong question. And they were always going to get those answers.

But does that mean we can dismiss this survey?

I'd actually say no. Even though there is an obvious sampling bias and poor wording, I still think it has some use. Taken as a whole, it serves to highlight one very important point – people judge charities via the interactions they have with them.

In Bluefrog's 2009 research into lapsing – which can be downloaded here – donors told us that poor quality and inappropriate communications actively pushed them away from charities.

This is because inappropriate and unwanted communications generated negative emotions that donors didn't particularly enjoy. And when giving doesn't feel good, donors don't like to give.

So what makes donors feel bad about being asked for money? Well, this is what our research sample told us...

The charity makes changes that the donor dislikes or doesn't value

A change in name, purpose or a way of operating can cause an uncomfortable feeling. We found a significant number of donors voicing concerns over charities becoming too 'political'. This could also relate to exposure to different fundraising techniques.

Taking donors for granted

This takes many forms. Not thanking appropriately, asking too often, sending inappropriate communications or not recognising what a donor has done. 

Breaking promises

A broken promise tells the donor you don't care about them. It could be ignoring a direct request or failing to meet an expectation. This was particularly important for donors who were recruited face to face. Many described an enjoyable and engaging recruitment experience which was followed by communications that left them feeling let down.

Not paying attention

This isn't just ignoring what a donor does, but also what a donor doesn't do. Donors expect charities to understand what they like and what they don't like. For example, a number of donors said that when they refused a request to set up a committed gift, they tended to mean it. If they were asked again it made them think that they weren't very important.

When the ask feels inappropriate

Donors know that charities need money. They also know that they have to ask for it. But being asked at the wrong time, or for the wrong amounts, or by methods they don't like can generate negative emotions. And no donor enjoys to feel that they're being asked too often.

By not knowing when to stop

Donors were particularly irritated by the fact that they still received appeals from charities when they had asked for them to stop, or if instead of an acknowledgement or thank you, an appeal was the first communication they'd received since cancelling a regular gift.

The key point is that communications need to be relevant and appropriate for the audience. Mass-marketing techniques are always going to present a charity with difficulties. The goal is to have a strategy in place to mitigate any problems. My top three tips would be...

• Don't be pushy
• Respond to complaints as a priority
• Keep a close eye on your data and treat your donors according to their wishes.

So what do people really dislike about direct mail appeals?

The FRSB has just released their Annual Report for 2010. Based on the detailed analysis of complaints received by 1,138 UK charities, I'd say it paints a pretty decent picture of our noble profession.

Even when you look at the more 'engaging' fundraising techniques – such as face to face recruitment (in the street and at the door), telephone and direct mail – we find it takes a huge number of solicitations to generate a single complaint.

In the case of direct mail, for example, we can expect one complaint for every 2,439 packs that drop through the country's letterboxes. Expressed as a percentage that's just 0.006%.

To my mind, that's not too shabby.

But where it gets particularly interesting is when we start looking at what aspects of DM people are actually complaining about.

The answer might surprise you...

If you have followed the debate in the sector press over the last few years, you could be forgiven for thinking that the biggest threat to fundraising was the pen. By that, I mean the pen that many charities enclose with an appeal, primarily to make it easy for the donor to respond. 

If it's not the pen, it might be the greeting cards, the address labels, the badges, the wrist bands, cuddly toys or the various other enclosures that are used to engage donors and lift response rates.

This report shows that where the reason for complaint was recorded (as it was in 6,556 cases – about two-thirds of all notifications), enclosures were mentioned approximately four hundred and twenty times. 

That's four hundred and twenty complaints for over 147 million mailing packs. A complaint rate of 0.0003%.

Of course, not all charities use enclosures and not all charities are members of the FRSB. And there may be hundreds of complaints about enclosures to organisations that aren't reporting them, but this study would tend to demonstrate that it's not really an issue.

But what the report does highlight, is that the data policies of many organisations could do with a bit of a clean-up. 

Around 60% of all DM complaints were related in some way to data issues. It could be poorly addressed communications or mailings sent to deceased individuals. It could be a failure to ensure non-responsive recipients are removed from mailing files (frequency concerns) or simply not taking enough care of the data entrusted to us. 

And that's the biggest surprise for me. A robust data process is a fundraising no-brainer. Not only will it help tackle complaints, but it also reduces costs – achieved by regularly cleaning data and excluding those donors who (through their inaction) have told us that they no longer want to support you.

Add the increased income a sensible data strategy can add to your bottom-line and you find little reason not to invest in ensuring you get your data right. 

You can download your copy of the report here.

Oxfam Vs Nothing But Nets

The Science of Giving is a fantastic publication that should be on the shelf of every fundraiser. It summarises some of the most important social experiments that have helped to highlight the reasons behind low response rates and high levels of attrition.

The chapter by Cynthia Cryder and George Loewenstein is a particular favourite. A couple of the experiments they recount neatly demonstrate the connection between tangibility and generosity.

In the first example, two groups were presented with information about Oxfam and asked to decide how much, if anything, they wished to donate.

The first group had Oxfam described to them in a tangible way, and were told that one way donations are used is to provide clean water to villagers in West Africa.

The second group received an intangible description explaining that donations would go to a broad range of projects throughout the world.

Not surprisingly, the participants who read about Oxfam in a tangible way donated almost twice as much as those who received the general information.

The second experiment took a similar approach, with one group presented with information about Oxfam whereas the second group heard about a relatively small niche charity, Nothing But Nets, an organisation that provides mosquito nets to poor families in Africa.

Consistent with the results from the previous study, participants who read about Nothing But Nets donated almost three times as much as the participants who read about Oxfam.

When questioned about this difference, the donors who had given to the more tangible examples explained their higher levels of generosity quite simply – they felt their gift would have more of an impact. Something that has three important implications:

• It helps increase levels of trust.
• It provides the donor with the feeling that they are making a measurable difference rather than just adding a small drop of help to a massive ocean of need.
• It encourages an emotional connection, leaving a donor with a far more powerful memory of the experience than if they just handed over money to a relatively impersonal brand.

Which helps demonstrate the reason why it's always worth getting on the phone, bike, bus, train or even plane to gather the first hand examples to show a donor just how they are going to make a difference.

So what's going on in the digital fundraising world?

The 2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study has been published by M+R Strategic Services and the Nonprofit Technology Network. It's based on analysing the online giving and advocacy activity of donors to 40 charities and nonprofits. It is obviously a US study, but the figures are useful to those of us wondering how we are doing with our online fundraising in the UK too.

You can download your free copy here (registration required but it's worth it).

As you'll see, the headline figure is one of growth. Income is up 14% from 2009 to 2010, much of it generated by appeals for Haiti and Pakistan. But all sectors actually saw an increase in the number of online gifts.

But that isn't necessarily down to the emails charities are sending as generally, response rates are in decline. The average for fundraising emails was down 17% at just 0.08%. Advocacy was down 7% at 3.3%.

Unsubscribe rates were approximately 0.24% for appeals, 0.22% for newsletters and 0.16% for advocacy emails.

One point I'd add that isn't covered in detail by this study is the impact email can have when used alongside direct mail appeals. We've seen a significant increase in response rates (upwards of 5%) when combining the two. So though response rates might generally be in decline, integration can be a very effective remedy (at least in the UK).

Facebook fan pages have seen growth rates on average of 14% a month and have been particularly popular for supporters of charities and nonprofits working in the wildlife and animal welfare sector.

Whereas Twitter seems most popular for people interested in international development.

Churn rates stood at an average of 18% for email and 14% for mobiles.

The report is packed full of tons of detailed data and well worth a read. There's a particularly interesting case study on how one organisation has used text messages to great effect. You'll also be able to dig through all the information on average gifts as well (which isn't necessarily so relevant to the UK).

The web is older and so are (some of) its users

A rather interesting statistical view of the digital landscape in Europe has just been published by comScore.

The report provides insights on content categories, trends in social networking (and the knock-on effects on email and instant messaging), with a great snapshot of what's happening in online advertising, video, search and smartphone use.

Key points worth highlighting (with a nod to the older demographic that tends to interest fundraisers) include:

• The Dutch and the British spend most time online (31.39 and 30.38 hours / month respectively).
• Europeans spend more time on Facebook than any other site.
• As you might imagine, this means social networking and photo sharing are the fastest growing things to do on the web.
• Which also means that social networking has been the main driver in the growth in display advertising.
• Email use is still growing amongst those aged 35 and over (though nowhere near as fast as social networking).
• There seems to be a shifting preference to watch fewer, longer videos online (the average length of a video is now 5.6 minutes).
• Europe-wide, smartphones account for about 30% of the mobile market.
• 28% of European Facebook users are aged over 45...

...but over 36% of LinkedIn users are in the same age group.

With the significantly older (and wealthier) profile of LinkedIn users, it makes me wonder why I hardly ever hear about it as a fundraising medium. It might not be as sexy as Facebook and Twitter, but with the right offer it could be far more successful.

I personally find LinkedIn a great source of information on attitudes to giving amongst higher-value donors. We are just starting to use it to enhance the higher-value DM appeals that we create at Bluefrog. As you can imagine, It's a great way of learning about prospects. But it's useful in a number of other ways too.

If you're new to fundraising on LinkedIn, you might find these tips or this case study useful.

I'd also suggest you download the full paper from comScore (it's available here free of charge but registration is required). You'll also find the 2010 US digital review and the 2010 mobile year in review at the same site.

Are you local? Are you relevant?

Many years ago when I was fundraising for YMCA England, we undertook a direct mail campaign to assess the impact of asking people to support local work.

YMCA England is comprised of over 130 independent community based charities that work together under the YMCA brand. A characteristic that helps it understand and respond to the needs of each home community.

We focused on one particular YMCA in the south-east of England, creating a mailing pack that demonstrated the situation for homeless young people living nearby.

We had a good set of statistics on local levels of homelessness and youth unemployment along with some case studies that showed the impact this had on young people. I can even remember the line on the outer envelope...

There's a serious problem on your doorstep.

The pack was mailed to prospective donors in areas close to and neighboring the YMCA (including surrounding counties) in a test alongside our national banker acquisition pack that featured a YMCA project in the north of England.

When we analysed the results we were surprised by the response – the further you lived from the YMCA, the more likely you were to give to the 'local' pack. The response rates generated from the areas nearest to the YMCA were really rather poor.

We came up with two possible reasons:

1. The people living closest to the YMCA couldn't afford to give money to charity.
2. People didn't value the work we asked them to fund.

We discounted the first reason as the responses from the national banker pack demonstrated that people living close to the YMCA could afford to give to charity (and were happy to do so).

Which left us considering the fact that in the face of the evidence and the emotional stories they had been presented with, our prospective donors didn't really want to fund services aimed at local young people.

This could be down to nimbyism, prospective donors seeing service provision as adequate or simply that young people in other parts of the country were thought to be in far greater need than those in their own neighbourhood.

I was reminded of this test by some recent research that has been published by Action For Children surrounding the launch of their new online giving platform My Action For Children.

They asked 2,116 people the following question...

'Thinking about the support available to children in your local community specifically, which of the following statements best describes how concerned you are?'

When presented graphically, the results show that the age groups that make up the traditional supporter base of children's charities (people aged 55 and above - the bright blue and orange columns in the chart below) might not be that moved to support local children's charities.

 

In surveys of this nature, I think it's important to look at the extremes as they can help highlight the number of supporters who feel so strongly about an issue they are likely to give. In this instance, those prospective givers who describe themselves as very concerned are far out numbered by those who aren't concerned at all.

But take a look at another part of the survey and you'll see what donors really value.

When asked if they would like to know specifically what their donations go towards in their local area, donors – as you can see from the chart below – tell us quite plainly that this is something they are very interested in.

And that's an important lesson. We generate the highest response rates when we make an appeal relevant to the donor. What we have to ensure is that we don't confuse local with relevant. They are not always the same things. This means that people may well be more motivated to give to a local hospice or arts appeal - as it might be a service they have experience or need of. But with other areas of charitible activity – such as working with young people – local might not be an effective fundraising hook.

Donors do want to know what they achieve by giving, but if it is related to something they are not particularly interested in, it might not be enough to get their hand in their pocket or purse in the first place.

The full set of research tables can be downloaded here. Thanks to Action For Children for generously sharing them.

So what have fundraisers been doing over the last 30 years?

A rather interesting paper has just been published by CGAP and CMPO looking at three decades of charitable giving in the UK.

It's based on a detailed analysis on the main trends in giving that uses the government's Living Costs and Food Survey (which used to be called the Family Expenditure Survey – FES).

The last thirty years have been a period of massive social, technological, political and economic change. And by taking a long-term look back in time we should be better placed to make plans for the current turbulent era and those yet to come.

The full paper (all 64 pages) can be downloaded here, but for those of you too busy to read it yourself, here are a few points that I think are worth highlighting:

The Millennium marked the end of a decline in the proportion of households giving to charity

Back in 1978, the number of households that gave (during a two-week survey period) to charity stood at 32%. It had fallen to 25% by 1999. Over the first eight years of the current decade it averaged at over 28%.

To my mind, that bounce back matches the explosion in face-to-face recruitment and is representative of all those young donors finding their way on to our databases.

Donations have increased

Donors are now giving almost three times as much as they did in 1978.  But the rise in giving over the last twenty years only reflects the growth in GDP.

As a share of total spending, households give just 0.4% – the same as they did in 1988.

All the new charities that have been set up, the new fundraising techniques that have been introduced, the growth in regular giving (up from 36% in 1983 to 63% in 2008) and the impact of the web haven't had that much impact on how much people actually give.

Giving is largely recession-proof

This is something that a number of us who have lived through economic downturns have been highlighting for some time. It's good to see that the statistics support our opinion. As you'll see from this chart, even during the difficult times (marked in red and green), giving has remained strong:

I've posted before that recruitment and subsequent development of new donors can get rather tough when money is tight. Some analysis that I've seen has shown that more donors are just giving a single gift to a charity and simply not responding to subsequent appeals. I'm also hearing of some frightening rates of attrition regarding street fundraising.

And when I look to the future, even with these statistics in mind, I have some real concerns about what will happen over the next twelve months. The number of people who look likely to lose their jobs (particularly older women employed in the public sector) worries me and I will be amazed if we don't see an even more pronounced effect on recruitment. I just hope, that as in the past, our loyal donors will make up the shortfall. Whether they do is probably down to the actions that we take now. But more on that later.

Older donors are becoming even more important

The over 65s now account for 35% of all donations, compared to just 25% in 1978.

One area of particular interest that the report uncovers is the giving behaviour of baby boomers (the youngest tranche of this demographic group is highlighted in grey in the table) whom we first observe when they were in their early twenties and then track right through to their forties. As you'll see, participation grows as they age. That to me is rather good news. A number of people have questioned whether baby boomers will be as generous as their parents and grandparents. The trend indicates that they are (for more on this, please take a few minutes to read the comments to this post).

Affluent donors are giving more

The richest 10% of households now account for 22% of total given (up from 16% in 1978). From 2003 to 2008, the top 50% of households (ranked by donation size) accounted for 92% of all giving. It should be noted that the largest donation observed in the 30 years of data is only £1,500 so it seems very likely that many high-value donors haven't found their way onto the survey. If they were included, the impact of the rich would be even more pronounced.

So what does this mean for those of us fundraising today?

First off, I think we can draw some comfort from the evidence that donors keep giving at times of economic hardship. Though the current recession is particularly tough, I'm confident most donors will remain true to form.

However, qualitative research undertaken by Bluefrog shows that when money becomes tight, donors are likely to focus their giving on favoured causes and organisations.

As a result, charities must concentrate on giving donors what they want – a real understanding of what their giving has achieved and a means of becoming part of the charity rather than just a a source of funds.

This is important for donors of all ages. An ongoing worry of mine is the possible impact a poor relationship might have on donors who are early in their giving lives. A large number of young people recruited on the street are currently cancelling their regular gifts shortly after sign-up. The response of many charities seems to be little more than hoping for the best and expecting the recruitment agency to replace the lost donors as part of a guarantee. Of course, this approach might be effective in the short-term, but what is the long-term impact on how that donor sees the charity when they enter the prime charitable stage of their lives?

Charities should also look at how they treat mid-value donors (those who give between £100 and £5,000). At Bluefrog we've seen that donors in this range respond best to charities who drop the mass marketing approach and concentrate on adding value through increasing relevence and personalisation. The result is a significant increase in income.

Finally, a robust win-back strategy should be developed for donors who lapse. If donors are lost, it doesn't have to be for ever. But winning back should not simply be handed over to a telephone agency. A real relationship is based on hearts and minds, not just repeatedly asking until someone says yes just so they can put down the phone.

Why do younger people seem to ignore your appeals?

An interesting set of studies has been published by UC Berkley that looks at how our emotional strategies for dealing with upsetting issues change as we age.

As psychologist, Robert Levenson explains:

"Increasingly, it appears that the meaning of late life centres on social relationships and caring for and being cared for by others... Evolution seems to have tuned our nervous systems in ways that are optimal for these kinds of interpersonal and compassionate activities as we age."

One study looked at how 144 healthy adults in their twenties, forties and sixties reacted to neutral, sad and disgusting film clips.

Younger and middle-aged participants were best at using 'detached appraisal' to tune out and divert their attention from unpleasant and upsetting scenes. This approach draws heavily on the prefrontal brain's executive function, a mechanism responsible for memory, planning and impulse control that tends to diminish as we age.

Older people were best at reinterpreting negative scenes in positive ways using 'positive reappraisal' – a coping mechanism that draws heavily on life experience and lessons learned.

A second larger study used similar techniques to test how our sensitivity to sadness changes as we age and found that the older cohort showed more sadness in reaction to emotionally charged scenes, compared to younger people. The results, as explained by psychologist Benjamin Seider showed that:

"In late life, individuals often adopt different perspectives and goals that focus more on close interpersonal relationships... By doing so, they become increasingly sensitised to sadness because the shared experience of sadness leads to greater intimacy in interpersonal relationships."

Which, in short, explains why younger people are less likely to respond to your appeals - they are emotionally programmed to ignore them.

You can read more on the studies here.

Picture credit: Melanie Hayes