Charities have a significant opportunity to boost online fundraising by offering carefully crafted donor journeys. But how can potential donors be most effectively persuaded to make a gift when times are hard, and competition among charities is so fierce?
Behavioural science for charity fundraising is key to goDonate’s work in building and managing donor experiences through our charity clients’ online giving pages. In our first blog about behavioural science, we looked at the first two of four key aspects which are crucial to raising funds for charity:
- Social norms
- Anchoring bias
- Cognitive bias
- Cognitive ease
In this blog we’ll focus on the cognitive elements of behavioural science which could make a major difference to your online charity fundraising campaigns.
Coping with cognitive bias among donors
Cognitive bias manifests as generally unhelpful mental shortcuts; systematic patterns of thought that can skew information and prevent people’s more rational perceptions or considered decision-making.
Of course, these are key issues in digital fundraising. The bad news is that estimates identify as many as 180 different cognitive biases: there are a lot to contend with.
So, thinking closely about people’s potentially preconceived ideas about your cause, and who you’re helping, is crucial. Only then can you pierce a donor’s perceptions and get your message through their mental barriers.
Identifiable victim bias and its effect
‘Identifiable victim bias’ is one important consideration. This describes the effect of potential donors feeling greater empathy towards and an urge to help someone who is specifically identified in an appeal, for instance, compared to multiple victims or a vague group.
Here’s an example: two versions of the same charity communication.
The first states: “Children all deserve basic human needs, and a happy and healthy life. But this isn’t the case for many young African children. More than 26 million of them struggle with starvation; they are in constant, chronic pain. Often, they’re emotionally and physically stunted. They need your help – make a donation today.”
Contrast that message with a second approach: “Children all deserve basic human needs and a happy, healthy life. Jimmy Kimathi doesn’t have this. He is only 12 and struggles with starvation. He can’t concentrate at school and looks different to his classmates due to his stunted growth. Jimmy needs your help to overcome this tragic situation: please donate today.”
You might have already guessed that the second appeal raised more money for the charity by presenting an ‘identifiable victim’. The use of Jimmy – a specific child, compared to a mass group in the first communication – triggers donors’ emotions.
Cognitive ease and charity donation websites
We have so many messages to process. The constant bombardment from brands, work colleagues and clients, not to mention family and friends, can overwhelm us. Charities need to get to the point with a simple message that succinctly prompts a potential donor to respond.
If the message is easy, familiar or preferably both, we’ll respond more positively. For that reason, it’s vital that whenever you’re encouraging someone to make a donation, you ease the cognitive demand on them as much as possible.
There’s a lot you can do to ensure the online donor journey within your digital fundraising strategy is an easy chance to pledge support – not a tedious chore:
How to increase support in your digital fundraising strategy
- Reduce noise – Remove unnecessary distractions from the donation funnel, e.g. links that divert supporters from your online donation form.
- Cut text – Donation forms often feature chunks of copy; some – like a Gift Aid statement – are needed, so commit to using less text or hide it under a reveal button.
- Simplify forms – Cut back fields to reduce charity donation form fatigue; goDonate’s extensively tested and optimised, single-page dynamic form includes only what’s required to help convert supporters into donors and to boost online donations.
- Scrap questions – Don’t ask questions if you aren’t going to use the data. Also consider whether some questions can be asked later in your supporter nurture strategy instead of on the form.
- Beware fatigue – Overall, fewer pages and fewer clicks count in your favour. Drop-off increases as people get fed up with long and complex journeys.
How goDonate can help
If you’ve read both of our blogs on behavioural science for charity fundraising, you will now have a good initial grasp of its power for charity digital fundraising (and, come to mention it, all forms of fundraising).
If you want to know more about how goDonate incorporates behavioural science techniques to create engaging digital experiences for donors, converting more donors and elevating your online income, contact us.
Donors don’t always weigh up a cause rationally. Cognitive bias describes the mental shortcuts that shape how they read and respond to an appeal instead. A charity’s messaging often has more influence over a donation decision than the facts of the cause itself. Recognising these patterns is what allows fundraising teams to frame appeals that actually land.
Identifiable victim bias is the tendency for people to feel greater empathy and urgency to help a single, specifically named individual than a large, anonymous group. Charity appeals that feature one named person, rather than statistics about many people, tend to generate more donations as a result.
Cognitive ease describes how readily and comfortably a person can process a message. The easier a message is to understand, the more positively people tend to respond to it. For charities, this means donation journeys with clear messaging and minimal friction convert more supporters.
Charities can reduce drop-off by simplifying donation forms, cutting unnecessary text and fields, removing distracting links, and limiting the number of pages and clicks in the journey. Fewer barriers between a donor’s decision and completing their gift means fewer people abandon the process.
Charities should only ask questions on a donation form if they intend to use the data collected. Non essential questions can often be deferred to later stages of donor communication rather than added to the donation form itself, keeping the initial ask as simple as possible.