Help For Your Hesitant Volunteer Fundraiser

I am the mother of a thirty-year-old with Down syndrome, autism, and type 1 diabetes. Like me, I'm sure you've been asked to help fundraise for an organization dedicated to helping your loved one. And you thought, “We have a really rare situation. Will anyone donate if this isn’t part of their life?”

One of the common misconceptions about fundraising is that “there aren’t enough affected people who care.” People often assume that prospective donors need to be personally affected by their mission to want to engage with the organization, either as a donor or a volunteer.

This misconception results in “thinking small” about the chances someone will say yes to your request for a donation or your organization’s ability to attract and retain supporters. In fact, any mission—no matter how modest or grand—can attract and retain supporters if you apply what we know about the psychology of the people you are trying to engage.

An extreme example is an organization raising money to benefit street dogs and cats in Thailand. Imagine raising money for that cause. It would be virtually impossible to find people who cared specifically about street dogs and cats in Thailand. This might be hard even in Thailand.

Headquartered in Phuket, Thailand, the Soi Dog Foundation’s mission is to help street dogs and cats, offering spaying and neutering services, rescue, sheltering, and adoption of animals who can’t be returned to the area they were found.

In 2011, the first year that financials for the organization are available, Soi Dog reported an income of $1.1M. Fast forward to 2019, and Soi Dog enjoyed global revenue of over $16M. Notice I highlighted “global” because there are now chapters supporting their work for Asian animal welfare all over the world.

So, what does Soi Dog understand that has allowed them to flourish, even though their mission seemingly touches few people personally? To answer this question, let’s look at the findings of “philanthropic psychology,” a relatively new area of study that examines why people engage with nonprofits.

Philanthropic psychology is led by Dr. Jen Shang and Dr. Adrian Sargeant in the U.K. at the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy. It involves a fundamental shift in thinking about supporters’ motivations.

Supporters aren’t giving to Soi Dog. They’re giving through Soi Dog to make something they care about happen.

Philanthropic psychology teaches us what affects someone’s decision to respond to a message to help a nonprofit. Typically, we’ve thought that you had to stir someone’s emotion to get them to engage with you. And, while that’s true to some extent, now we know that it’s the supporter’s goals—their identity and the perceived impact of their assistance—that draws them in.

There are many aspects to a person’s identity. Soi Dog wants their supporters to come to think of themselves as animal welfare evangelists, animal welfare warriors—to internalize it as a part of who they are. When someone thinks, “I’m an animal welfare evangelist,” rather than “I’m someone who supports animal welfare,” it has become a part of their identity. You can tell when a person has installed something as a part of their identity when they talk about being something rather than doing something.

The marketing guru Seth Godin puts it this way; your goal is to get people to think, “People like us do things like this.” You want them to ask themselves, Is this me? Am I the kind of person that saves animals?

Let’s look at some typical fundraising copy from Soi Dog: “When Moldo was found unable to walk and terrified of everyone, many would have said she had no future. But not people like you. Please go to www.save_suffering_dogs to join a special group of animal lovers who are changing the world for homeless animals.”

Per Seth Godin, this copy is loaded with “people like us” references that it invites the reader to answer—

• “But not people like you.” Is this me?

• “… join the special group…” Is this me?

• “…animal lovers…” Is this me?

People throughout the world said “yes” to these questions to the tune of $16M in 2019. Soi Dog is masterful at speaking to their constituent identity and activating it for support. They are also experts in appealing to the second goal that supporters have—having an impact.

More copy: “Moldo was paralyzed in her hind legs. Her future depended on people like you. Your monthly gift changed all that, changed her life.” Soi Dog tells lots of before and after stories to emphasize the impact supporters have on the lives of animals. And they don’t talk about how great they are; they talk about how great you are. They use the phrase “Because of you,” a lot. As in, “Because of you, these animals will be saved; without you, they won’t.”

When Soi Dog interacts with supporters, they’re not asking them to donate; they’re inviting them to make something happen they think is important. Is your goal to save animals? Giving through Soi Dog will make it so.

And that’s the reason that people keep giving to Soi Dog; their need to make something important happen is satisfied by their relationship with the organization. Plainly speaking, it makes them happy. And therein lies your takeaway if you’re a fundraiser or someone who’s trying to build a constituency for a cause of any type.

Let’s talk about a professional fundraiser’s number one job. That seems obvious. It’s to raise money, as much money as possible for their organization’s mission. Right?

Brace yourself; that’s wrong. If you said their job is to raise as much money as possible, you’re putting tremendous pressure on them. Every day this professional (or a parent fundraising for a cause) wakes up thinking that they have to separate people from their money. This mindset means they have to talk potential donors into doing something they might not want to do. That feels bad.

So today, right now, start to think of fundraising another way. From today on, remember that a fundraiser’s number one job is to make donors feel good about supporting their organization or its mission. If this is you, on Monday morning, did you think, “What can I do to make my supporters happy this week?” I bet you might have thought about making your kids happy, or maybe your spouse. You’ve probably described your supporters as a part of your “family.” So why should they be any different?

The relationship you build with your supporters depends on the way you communicate with them. Identity appeals take a little expertise, but ultimately, it’s not rocket science. Using the sentence, “As a caring, compassionate member of the XYZ community, you know that...” “Caring” and “compassionate” are two words that research has shown Americans associate with being a moral person. Using them activates, or “primes,” as psychologists say, people’s moral identity and increase their response rates by more than ten percent.

When it comes to your communications, all you really have to do is become good at doing two things most nonprofits are lousy at—thanking supporters and reporting how they made a difference. That’s why the Soi Dogs of the world—the successful nonprofits—focus squarely on the supporter and the things they made possible. As an example, does your organization provide free cataract surgery in Sub-Saharan Africa? Then it’s your supporter who removed the cataract; the surgeon just held the scalpel.

And supporters can tell when you’re faking it, so don’t. But when you really love them and want them to be happy, the money will follow.