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After I Give, What Do I Get?
Sometime very soon, I am going to launch an experiment where I donate to 20-30 nonprofits that I currently have no contact with and then see what kind of communications I get back from them over time. I’d like your help in shaping this project.
I’m especially interested in the frequency and content of the communication. How personalized will it be? Will they attempt to learn more about me? Will they encourage me to do more? What will they highlight in their communications to me? What format will the communications take?
I’m still thinking about the right mix of nonprofits and donation levels and methods and would love to hear your thoughts. I’m not looking for a statistically accurate methodology, just a really interesting one.
– Who should I give to and what should the mix look like? I’d like the list to include some nonprofits that I currently know nothing about (although I won’t give to any group whose mission I completely oppose — let’s save that for another experiment). Should I go for a random mix of sizes, age, and missions? Or should I give to some similar organizations to see how they compare?
– I’ll spend $500 upfront on donations, with more to come later in the year, depending how this all turns out. Should I give $20 to 25 groups? Or should I go with $10 to 20 and $100 to 3 groups? Or some other combination?
– I’d like to give in a variety of ways, e.g. snail mail, online, through Facebook Causes, etc. What other methods should I include? Should I give to the same nonprofit in a couple of different ways to see if I’m treated differently?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this over the next week. Naturally, I’ll let you know what happens over the next several months as the results come in.
14 Responses to “After I Give, What Do I Get?”
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April 30th, 2008 at 10:31 am
I think it would be interesting to see the difference in the level of interaction if two seperate people gave the same organization $10 and $100.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:56 am
hmmm…this could be an interesting challenge for us to up our game. Our new nonprofit Epic Change (http://www.EpicChange.org) might provide an interesting case study. I’ll admit, to date, that we’ve not developed a great strategy around how to cultivate new donors. While I’m hesitant to be “called out”, the mere possibility that you might expose our faux pas may encourage us to learn more & improve our approach.
Great idea!
April 30th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Very interesting idea. I gave a $10 donation to a local org that helps the homeless and children at a luncheon this org held a couple of weeks back. I recieved an acknowledgement letter/thank you soon after and an encouragement to make another donation — that’s just from $10!
On the flip side I have a friend who joined an org as a “member” and has never heard a single word from them!
I think the quality of the response speaks volumes about how an org is run, and how savvy they are at fundraising.
Will be interested in hearing more about your experiment.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Hi Kivi,
My advice is to go with $10 donations to get information from as many nonprofits as possible. I don’t believe you are going to get a different response from most in the $10-$100 range. I am VERY interested in your results. I suggest crossing several mission areas but having multiple in each. I would also suggest getting a mix of nonprofits who have an online presence and those who do not. In addition to learning about their fundraising strategy, I would like to know if (and how) they engage a new donor regarding getting involved with advocacy, volunteering, etc.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Hi Roger,
Yeah, I’m thinking about just doing the smaller donations, but I don’t think I can track more than 30 groups. I might go the $10 route and save some of the $500 budgeted and make some second donations earlier in the process . . .thanks for the perspective.
Kivi
May 1st, 2008 at 9:28 am
Our organization serves a community of more than a million people with a staff of around 80. Our fund development dept. has 2 staff. We send thank you notes to all donors with their tax receipt for whatever amount, and appreciate all donations, but do not follow through with further personalized correspondence to donors who give less than $50 because we simply don’t have the resources. We’ve also had complaints from donors who think it’s a waste of their donation for us to send more mail to them. So you may see differences depending on the amount from one organization - not because they don’t appreciate people giving what they can, but because they have to alot their resources wisely and responsibly.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Carmen,
I believe the organization needs to view the new donor (who only gives a small amount initially)with a lifetime value. This includes the potential for receiving future donations, volunteering, etc. This might result in different decisions regarding costs. I also believe technlogy needs to be embraced and exploited to allow some level of regular communication with all donors without cost having to be a major factor. I expect Kivi is going to find some interesting patterns from nonprofits regarding their perception of the new donor and their view of using technology.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
There is a great new group in the Bronx, NY that has a facebook donation element. Its called the Greenworkers Cooperative (http://www.greenworker.coop/website_j/) and the facebook page is http://apps.facebook.com/causes/63213?h=plvw&recruiter_id=13563760.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I did this exactly this winter. For Christmas, I donated to 12 organizations (all snail mail though I love your idea of using different channels) to see what kind of stream I would get into. I’ve been generally disappointed in the response actually.
Specifically, I got a couple phone calls, a handful of mail from almost every organization but NONE of them put me on their email list surprisingly! I even gave my email in a letter and explicitly said “I look forward to learning more about your work.” My hypothesis is that what you get will largely depend on through what method you give as well as the size of the organization – tiny will do a lot, medium won’t and large will put you in a bulk stream and give you a lot but most will be impersonal.
May 6th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I agree in chosing, lets say, 4 or 5 missions fields and then in each field pick out 4, 5 or 6 nonprofits (some with web presence and others not). As Roger Carr suggested this would be ideal making it easier to come to solid, valuable conclusions. The only thing is, in my opinion, I would rather donate 20$ and not 10$. I dont think you’re going to get substantial feedback on such a minimal amount as 10$ - specially from those organizations that dont use new media.
May 7th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
As a fundraiser, I would say give more money to fewer groups. The cost of entering your donation and sending you a thank you letter already eats into that $10 donation, to say nothing of future mailings as all organizations will hope to receive future gifts from you. When you are done with this experiment, I also think you should ask to have your name taken off any mailing lists for whom you don’t intend to sustain support.
May 7th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Trust me, I will definitely ask to be removed from any mailing lists of orgs who I don’t want to support long-term (assuming that I actually get more than just a thank you letter from them). I am hoping that quite a few will impress me enough that I’ll give more long-term, which is one reason why I’m only giving to orgs whose missions I believe in.
I’m also not going the $10 donation route — will likely to $20-25 and go from there. I’m getting the list together and hope to make the donations some time next week.
Thanks to all for commenting!
Kivi
May 8th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Hi Kivi,
In response to your post “After I Give, What do I Get” I was wondering if I could put that up on my blog. I am a Community Investment Strategist and that is one of the many questions my clients ask.
As what you should fund, I guess you should think about the type of impact you’d like to have. Is it building internal capacity of organizations so that they can do the work they want to do, or is it project specific? What is your risk tolerance?
The other thing you will have to consider is the cost that is associated with “sending something” after receiving a donation. Charities typically evaluate the cost:benefit ratio to raising a dollar. This is where donor stewardship and cultivation comes into play. In my experience, donors who give over $1000 typically get additional communication.
All the best,
Gena Rotstein
May 27th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
great idea! I would encourage you to consider making the greatest number of contributions you can, for the most part. I’d also like to encourage you to consider making a point to contact Non-profits that arguably are trying to “change the world,” such as domestic violence programs, etc., to see if THEY are any better at communication… (my guess: nope.)
thanks for all you do. this blog is a wonderful resource.
thanks,
Deborah