queer ideas

Understanding the barriers to giving

Donors don't particularly like to say no to charities.

That's because charities are great. When you give to them, you demonstrate to yourself and others that you are both kind and generous.

But what does refusing to give say about you?

It might be something a little unpleasant. As a result, many donors create emotional 'barriers' to help them deflect any accompanying negative feelings.

At Bluefrog, we've identified three main barriers that any good fundraising strategy needs to tackle if it is to be effective:

• Feeling unable to give
• Thinking that a gift will be ineffective
  
• Feeling unengaged by the charity or the cause.

You can read more about the barriers and how you tackle them here.

I mention them because I've been writing a paper on higher value donors and have found a couple of good pieces of research that will add to our understanding this particular part of the fundraising process.

The first was produced for HMRC by Ipsos Mori and can be downloaded here (PDF).

The second was produced by Barclays Wealth in co-operation with Ledbury Research and can be downloaded here (PDF).

As you'll see, only a third of wealthy people currently donate more than 1% of their net worth to charity.

But both papers identify that this group could give far more – both in terms of time and money – if it wasn't for the barriers that restrict their engagement. The Ipsos Mori paper is particularly interesting as it uncovers a growing desire amongst wealthy donors to retain control over the timing and destination of their donations.

I've also discovered a video that takes a look at a group of very wealthy people discussing why one of them doesn't like giving to charity. You won't necessarily learn much from it, but it will hopefully make you smile.

Fundraising as fashion

I was out buying a giant map today and saw this display in a nearby clothes shop.

Each bag cost £45 pounds. For each purchase, the World Food Programme receives a donation that will pay for 50 school meals for a child in Haiti.

Apparently young mums have been snapping them up, but I didn't see any actually in use. Though the US website shows that more than half a million FEED bags have now been sold worldwide.

It's an example of a charity moving the sale of the traditional badges, CDs and T-shirts firmly into the fashion world. A virtual gift that's a little more real than most.

Bags aren't the only product that FEED sells. You can also buy jewelry, cosmetics and teddy bears. Every sale helps someone in the developing world. The bears, for example, fund the purchase of PlumpyNut high nutrient paste for malnourished infants.

The concept reminded me of some similar ideas that were around in the mid 80's.

But things seem just a little more sophisticated today. A great example of this is provided by Save The Children who teamed up with Bulgari in 2009 to create a ring that sold for £200.

People give for a whole host of reasons and for those who want to publicise their generosity, it's things like this that are going to get them donating.

Plant a tree with your iPhone

Here's another example of charities using iPhone Apps. This time it's to raise funds.

It's called A Real Tree and is a very simple idea. You buy the app for £0.59 in the UK ($0.99 in the USA) and the purchase price is used to plant a tree in one of twelve countries that suffer from serious levels of deforestation. The charities that benefit are Sustainable Harvest International and Trees for the Future.

Install and open the app and you'll see a seedling spring to life and grow whilst bird song plays in the background. If you give the tree a poke, a little red bird flies around and if you shake your iPhone it causes a breeze to blow and blossom to float away in the wind. This short film explains more...

That might seem quite dull, but it's the potential of the idea that excites me. At it's heart, this app is a virtual gift (albeit one you buy for yourself). Whether it's a goat for someone living in Malawi or dinner for a homeless youngster in the UK, we've seen a massive growth in this type of giving over the last few years. Many forward looking oragnisations such as ActionAid and FARM-Africa now offer more than simple cards and certificates – ActionAid sell interactive e-cards and FARM-Africa have personalised films on their FARM-Africa Presents gift site.

The creative use of apps offers us another way to encourage giving, making the experience more engaging and more exciting to donors. From taking the simple tamagotchi style approach of caring for a goat through to a means of providing detailed feedback involving video clips, totalisers and maps showing people where and how they are making a difference, the iPhone is now offering us a new route to bring donors and charities closer together.

Thanks to @mashable for the tip.

Growth in the virtual gifts market

With Guy Fawkes Night just a few days away it won’t be long before every TV ad, every shop window and every radio station is reminding us that Christmas is still almost two months away.

In readiness, I’ve been looking at some of the public information available on the market for virtual gifts. I’ve already pointed out what recent YouGov research is saying about the potential for sales this year, but how those virtual shops on the interweb are doing in reality is what’s really important. Hitwise is a great place to keep an eye on what's happening and they have a few insights to share.

Overall visits to the Community – Humanitarian category are up. Hitwise is reporting that year on year traffic has increased by 12% (though this does include sites offering service provision as well as those designed to fundraise and give information). It’s interesting to see that the current number one site in this sector in the UK is The Hunger Site ­– not an organisation that many people in the offline community will ever have come across.

When it comes to virtual gifts, Hitwise is showing that Oxfam Unwrapped is already demonstrating a growth in visits, with a sharp rise starting at the beginning of October. It’s interesting to see that the Unwrapped site gets more hits than the main site and is currently ranked third in the Community-Humanitarian category, one place above it’s parent.

This is in contrast to searches around the broader term of fair trade (which includes terms like fair trade clothing and charity shops along with virtual / ethical gifts). Hitwise has found that these have been subject to a gentle decline over the past 12 months. Hitwise suggests that this is perhaps showing that shoppers are becoming less inclined to make more expensive ethical purchases as their economic confidence falls – as the recent down turn in sales of organic food may represent.

Virtual gifts will continue to drive traffic in this category and, without doubt, we will see a big spike as the Christmas shopping period really gets into swing. Real growth starts from Halloween and lasts until the week before Christmas when searches on the fair trade category fall off a virtual cliff.

And it’s important to mention that it's not just young people that will be buying virtual gifts. Hitwise demographics show that older people are more likely to visit Community – Humanitarian category sites against the online population as a whole.

Don't take the P. Give it instead

The Yougov research into giving to charity during the credit crunch that was undertaken in June and published in August provides a couple of intriguing insights into what people may or may not do in the upcoming recession.

They may well be less likely to donate goods to charity shops (down from 70% to 65%), but there were massive jumps in those who would recycle a mobile phone or printer cartridges (ok – we know they will only do it if it’s easy, but Greensource couldn’t do much more to make it easy – they’ll even come and pick them up from you). People were also more likely to participate in sponsored events, but what I was really interested in seeing was a rise across the board in people who would be more likely to buy a virtual gift.

In most charities core market of ABC1’s the intention to buy was up 25% – from (9% last year to 12% this year). Similar jumps can be seen across the sample with an increase of a third in London and just under 20% amongst those aged 55 and older.

I’m not sure why this might be the case. Perhaps people concerned about their economic situation next year will be less likely to spend money on normal fun gifts and will want to combine their charity budget with their Christmas one – creating their own special two for one deal.

It’s insights like this that are important to us in fundraising. We know cash is going to be tight. Donors are going to have a need to make their money go further. By responding to that need, we will continue to be successful. Raising money during the recession is not just down to mailing cheap packs to segments with the highest response rates. It is down to thinking about what our donors need and giving it to them.

Just take a look around the various virtual giving sites and sites and see what you can find. This, this or even this might find it’s way to a special friend of mine this year.