engaging experience

Discounting Charitable Gifts

"A survey last fall by American Express Publishing and Harrison Group found that 99% of wealthy consumers shop online, expecting goods to be discounted at least 30% from store prices." — Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2008

Twice in the last year my employer (and alma mater) has run a marketing campaign in which an anonymous donor promises $100,000 for each 1,000 gifts made during the challenge period. The goal is to drive participation by making each new gift, regardless of its value, worth an extra $100. The additional challenge money goes to financial aid, partly because it's an area of need, but also because it's broadly appealing to our constituency; an easy sell.

Challenges are a well-worn tactic of nonprofit fundraising: think public radio. They work because they lift gift value, but also because they create urgency. For us, the strategy works reasonably well. We usually see a few thousand donors fulfilling their pledges during these periods, many giving as little as $1, knowing their gift will amount to much more—up to 100 times more—when the challenge money comes in. But it's also not unusual for major annual fund donors, those who usually give in excess of $2,500, to fulfill their pledges during these campaigns, too. This is probably because we hit all non-donors hard with direct postal and email over a few weeks, and if you market, they will give. But we've always assumed the "extra $100" selling point probably doesn't carry much weight with these major donors.

But the above stat in the Wall Street Journal made me realize even the major donor might view such challenges as essentially a "discount" or "sale" on their charitable gift, because even a $2,500 gift yields a 4% premium if given during the challenge period. The donor doesn't realize a tax advantage of that additional money, but knowing it exists may make the donor feel like the "system" is giving them a better deal for the money.

This makes me wonder whether we could even more consciously leverage other mass-market phenomena like discounting, promotions, time-limited offers, and outlet sales without cheapening the enterprise. We're selling the undergraduate experience, essentially, but that's a pretty broad, generic product, even for an institution that has a strong reputation for excellence. What more specific products would connect with donors? And how can our product/marketing mix get more specific and targeted?

Obama (Mostly) Gets It

This week I donated a modest sum to Obama's candidacy. Earlier this month I started receiving email announcements from his campaign, a consequence of having joined his web community. I had already decided to contribute, so when I received a direct email solicitation, it was natural simply to click through and give.

The hook of this solicitation was the promise of a dollar-for-dollar match by another Obama supporter somewhere in the country, to whom I could subsequently send a personalized note. I entered my gift amount and card details, and learned on the confirmation screen that my matcher was "Norman." Using the form on the screen, I dropped Norman a line of thanks, declining to provide my email address because I wasn't keen to start a conversation with a stranger to whom my only connection was action politics. Once I'd submitted my note to Norman, I landed on another screen asking me to start recruiting other friends into the cause, using the site to reach out for additional support and donations. I decided to skip that step, too. I got an email confirmation of my gift a few minutes later, and left the site believing I'd done some tiny good in the world, and made a tiny connection to boot.

I also left believing the Obama camp gets it. They demonstrated by this experience that they know there's power in the emotional connection between the constituent and the candidate, but also among constituents themselves. They know that technology can facilitate that connection, and permit the constituent to make the connection as personal as she finds comfortable. They know that in marketing, there's always a next ask, and they know that on the web, there's always a next action.

But there's still some room for growth. I don't know, for example, whether my donation was tax-deductible, because neither the UI nor the email mentioned this. I don't know whether I'm going to receive a printed acknowledgment of my gift by postal mail, and whether this would be the official tax document. The net effect of this experience was more emotional than intellectual or programmatic, which is okay only to a point.

What's more, a few days after donating, I got another solicitation asking me to donate $15 or more to receive a groovy Obama car magnet. I'm not sure why I was asked again so soon; whether it was because the campaign has hasn't yet processed my gift, or because there's a policy of continual re-solicitation. (A less charitable donor might wonder whether they're disorganized or greedy.) And as a very recent donor of more than $15, shouldn't I get a car magnet, too? (Again, less charitably: shouldn't I have held my gift until I could get better swag?)

Since in my day job I design online fundraising websites, this experience has taught me a few things about designing a good fundraising web experience:

1. Ask for the sale, and always ask for the next action, but don't ask for the sale again too soon, or you'll risk alienating your loyal customers;
2. Support the donor's pragmatic requirements. Make it easy to find out the tax and financial consequences of their donation. Tell them whether to expect anything further in the mail;
3. If you offer a premium to new donors, send the premium to any new donor who's given in the last month, especially if the new premium is widely marketed;
4. If you offer a premium to new donors, offer one to repeat donors, too, and maybe even a better premium. Fundraisers know that repeat donors are more valuable than gold.

The Smiling Whale

I get the Twitter "over capacity" error screen at least once a day:

Why does this whale look so self-satisfied? And why aren't the birds straining on the ropes?

I would be embarrassed to run a web service that was so under-resourced, even if it were free to users, and I would be scrambling to enable additional capacity. Maybe the tweeting peeps at Twitter are scrambling; I don't know. This error screen sure doesn't tell me so. Maybe it should.

Absolute Pronouncements Corrupt Absolutely

In the last few days I've been treated to an overabundance of blanket pronouncements by experts. Here's a sampling:

"There are only five or six, maybe seven, real authors alive today."
"There are really only three or four pieces of literature that have ever been written about the Holocaust."
"There is almost no literature now. There's a lot of writing, but little of it is literature."
"The Back button is the button of doom."
"Users do not come to browse your site. They have a purpose."
"Web users want actionable content; they don't want to fritter away their time on (otherwise enjoyable) stories that are tangential to their current goals.

Okay, you're entitled to you opinion, and I'm entitled to mine. If you back up your opinion with data, you're more likely to convince me. But if you postulate easily disprovable axioms, or if you postulate axioms that are impossible to prove or disprove, I'm going to shut my mind to you. And that's not really what a pundit wants, is it?

Magnetic Fields Visualization

This short film, recorded at the Space Sciences Laboratory UC Berkeley, offers a striking visualization of magnetic fields.

Hat tip: cboone