Unveiling the Joint Impact of Environment and Donation History on Charitable Giving

This blog was written in collaboration with Katrina VanHuss, Founder of Turnkey For Good, and Otis Fulton, PhD, Vice President of Psychological Strategy.

Let’s say you’re a chief development officer. I ask you to describe your ideal donor. What would you say? 

You’d probably use words like “big-hearted,” “empathetic,” “socially responsible,” and “generous,” among others. 

But what does psychology tell us about seeking these people out? Personality alone is not enough to predict donors’ likelihood to give. Yet, setting outreach and appeal strategies without a better grasp of supporters’ potential to donate is inefficient and ineffective. 

So, how can we better understand supporters’ willingness and ability to donate, beyond just defining their personalities? Let’s explore two critically influential factors that impact our capacity to predict a person’s next action. 

Considering the impact of environment at scale 

Social psychologists understand what the general public often overlooks: the profound impact of a person’s environment—their immediate situation—on future action.

Environment is the holistic giving experience you’ve created for supporters, combined with their personal journeys and day-to-day interactions. This includes everything from whether their child got selected for the school play to whether they had a flat tire this morning. 

Psychologists consider environment the most powerful driver of behavior, but, unfortunately, we are limited in what we can control of a constituent’s environment. 

However, for the aspects of their environment we can influence, we should make every effort to do so.

Creating environments to elicit generosity 

Consider an experiment from 1973, often known as the “Beggar in the Doorway” study conducted by social psychologists John Darley and Daniel Batson.

In this study, the subjects were seminary students rushing to deliver practice sermons. Imagine John, one of these students, hurrying across campus, focused on getting to his meeting. Suddenly, he encounters a man slumped in a doorway, asking for help. Will John stop to assist, or will he walk on?

One would assume these seminary students would all stop to engage with the man, given their choice of a life of service. But when subjects believed they were running late to deliver their practice sermons, only about 10% stopped to help the man in the doorway. However, when they thought they had ample time before their sermon, approximately 63% offered assistance. 

We must direct our energy and resources toward creating experiences and environments that naturally elicit desired behaviors from a broader range of people.

By doing so, we can accelerate our missions. 

Our aim should be to expose all potential supporters to situations that will make them more likely to engage and contribute. Those individuals predisposed to support your cause will also benefit, as your strategically designed environments will naturally encourage their involvement.

Classy’s intelligent fundraising platform does this at scale, empowering nonprofits to create personalized experiences that bring their narratives and brands to life. Classy Studio, for example, allows organizations to create hyperpersonalized, connected experiences across various interactions, respecting and serving supporters’ individuality.

What other ways can you tailor your giving experiences to resonate with supporters and inspire action?

Powering predictive insights with deep donor data

First, it’s critical to identify the data points needed to paint a full picture of each supporter, which may include donor demographics, donation history, engagement metrics, and others. Collecting and analyzing this data involves sophisticated tools and methods to ensure it is organized and actionable. 

Relying solely on assumptions, personality traits, or basic donor scores and ratings can result in wasted efforts and leave gaps in one’s true understanding of a person’s next action. Instead, predictive models like Classy’s upcoming Supporter Insights feature can process vast amounts of data, uncovering patterns and insights that human analysis might miss. Some of which may indicate that certain individuals are already in an environment conducive to giving.

These models account for myriad factors, providing a comprehensive understanding of donor behavior. When used in the right environment, this data-driven approach can significantly increase the accuracy of predictions and lead to greater giving conversions.

Personalized appeals 

Additionally, donors have been exposed to modern e-commerce experiences on a daily basis for years, influencing their perception of streamlined digital interactions. How can organizations replicate these seamless flows in their own environments?

Intelligent Ask Amounts consider each donor’s unique giving history, providing personalized suggestions that encourage realistic contributions. This seemingly small element is a critical part of the environment you create. 

What seems like a reasonable gift size to one person might differ from another, so it’s essential to consider each donor’s situation. By offering the right appeals, you can enhance the likelihood of conversion, ensuring donors feel comfortable and motivated to give.

The trifecta of satisfaction

Donors have also expressed a strong desire to see the impact of their contributions on the organizations they support. Understanding how their donations influence specific outcomes is the most important factor in their decision-making process.

One way to ensure donors know and understand how their actions affect your cause is to put them in the driver’s seat. 

In our recent blog, The Power of Community: A Nonprofit’s Greatest Asset, we discussed how people seek out and stay in satisfying relationships. This perspective on motivation is known in social psychology as self-determination theory. At Turnkey For Good, we refer to this as the trifecta of satisfaction, which includes:

• Autonomy: I am in charge of what I do, and I make meaningful decisions 
• Competence: I am effective in what I do 
• Relatedness: I have close, affectionate relationships with others 

Consider how your organization can bring this to life for its supporters:

• Volunteer empowerment: Do you design volunteer touchpoints to be empowering and identity-building? Or are volunteers treated as nondecision-makers? 

• Events: Are your events purely entertainment? Or do they empower people? Do you use the event to create situations that build identity and create community? Are you leveraging the right fundraising event software to create the ideal in-person, virtual, or hybrid environment for attendees?
• Fundraisers: Do you provide satisfaction via autonomy, ability to show competence, and connection to others? Can you put fundraisers in charge of their experience? Are you encouraging peer-to-peer fundraising opportunities as a way to empower supporters?
• Digital platform design: Are all your donor engagement opportunities clear and accessible? Do you provide avenues to form a community with other like-minded people, like providing supporters with flexible crowdfunding capabilities? 

Scorecard your way to success

One way to evaluate the situations you create for your constituents is to scorecard them against the three elements of the trifecta of satisfaction, making changes where you can create a more satisfying situation. 

Some example questions include: 

• Can we enhance our registration process to boost our competence score? For returning registrants, could we highlight last year’s achievements and celebrate their past successes?
• Should we transition our volunteer program from volunteer management to volunteer empowerment? What specific actions and changes would this shift entail? Is our staff trained to empower volunteers rather than manage them?
• How can we redesign the event’s run of show to foster greater interpersonal connections among attendees and improve our relatedness score?
• Are there opportunities to enhance all three scores on our digital fundraising platform through page design and platform setup? For example, can we enhance automated recognition for volunteers’ fundraising efforts to elevate our competence score?

Community is a situation you can create

Humans are inherently social beings, with brains wired to connect, cooperate, and form bonds. This need for connection isn’t just a luxury. It’s a fundamental aspect of our biology. 

That’s why the most satisfying environment we can create is the opportunity for our constituents to become part of a community. Being part of a group provides a sense of belonging and identity, fulfilling our intrinsic needs. This fulfillment then leads to positive outcomes, as people feel inspired to act in alignment with their like-minded peers.

Most of these situations require staff action, support, and acceptance of a power shift into the hands of your fiercest advocates. Creating the best situations for supporters will require keeping their needs front and center.

As a social good practitioner, you already foster community. Your team-based fundraising events, leadership committees, and board are all communities. These groups are our most productive in terms of impact and revenue. 

Community situations yield activity and revenue. Isolation leads to inactivity. 

From crisis to connection

The nonprofit world is in crisis. That’s not hyperbole. At a time when the need is greater than ever, fewer people are making charitable contributions. 

This indifference may reflect a troubling social trend. Many of us experience profound loneliness and disconnection, described by the U.S. Surgeon General in 2023 as “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” His remedy for this crisis is to foster social connection and community.

Changing the world—even a little bit—is powerfully rewarding. We believe community lies at the heart of achieving nonprofit missions, uniting individuals with causes greater than themselves. As nonprofits thrive, so too will their impact. Moreover, by empowering people to change the world, we help them break free from their sense of isolation. Everybody wins.

What’s not great about that?

Copy Editor: Ayanna Julien