How social psychology can shape your fundraising

Brilliant session at Congress by Professor Adrian Sargeant.

He's done tons of testing around social psychology in fundraising. Particularly with large national public radio stations in the US, and the impact of various techniques on the response to inbound calls via radiothons.

They found:

1 Referring to a past callers donation amount increases average donation levels. "I just spoke to someone who gave $80, would you consider giving something like this.."

2 People (donors) who know others that support that station or even just listen to that station will give more. So qualifying questions around this are key.

3 Men are unmoved by the use of words suggesting morality, whereas women are moved and therefore likely to give around 20% more. I.e. using words such as generous, kind, caring etc before making the ask.

This is incredibly useful for helping us shape (by testing, of course) the way we frame asks within individual fundraising asks.

Keep the research coming Adrian.

Jonathon