Freakonomics Revisited: Emotion vs. Analysis in Giving
- Mon, June 27 2011
- Filed under: Fundraising essentials
The Freakonomics team recently put the concept of emotion vs. analysis up for debate in fundraising. They tested emotion vs. fact appeals to donors to Freedom from Hunger, with mixed results. In response, I interviewed one expert, Mark Rovner on the topic of emotion vs. analysis in giving. Today, I talk to one of the smartest people I know on this important topic - Greg Ulrich of Hope Consulting - who has done extensive research on what motivates giving. Hope Consulting’s fascinating study, Money for Good, is full of rich and nuanced findings about how donors think.
Katya: So the body of research is pretty clear, right? Donors are driven by feelings, not fact?
Greg: First, I agree with you in that individual donors are predominantly driven by emotions, not an analytic mindset. I thought Mark Rovner put it well in a recent interview with you when he said “There’s a myth, at best partially right, that higher dollar donors are more rational and analytical in their thinking.” Indeed, our research of over 8,000 individual donors shows that individuals rarely research donations, and that holds true for wealthy donors as well as the ‘masses’. Further, when we do see donors research charities, we see that they are usually looking to validate their decision to give to a particular nonprofit. Very seldom do we see donors research to find the ‘best’ nonprofit out of a group. So, based on the data we have gathered, I side with you (and with Mark) that charitable giving is primarily an emotional act for individual donors.
Katya: Great, so that’s settled. It’s that simple?
Greg: I think one thing that can hamper the field are these types of generalizations. We tend to characterize people as a homogeneous group: “donors don’t research”; “the new generation wants information via social media”; etc. What we at Hope Consulting try to do is not to paint the world as black and white, but to identify the different groups within it. In that light we find that about 15% of donors really care about the impact that a nonprofit is going to have (what we call the “High Impact” segment), and we see that about 20% of donors research charities as their ‘norm’. Now, to be clear, these donors aren’t behaving like “mini foundations”, rigorously evaluating organizations and trying to find the highest performing nonprofits out there, but they are open to information and to learning more about nonprofit organizations.
Katya: So how do we accommodate donors who do want this kind of information?
Greg: Our current research, which we are working on in conjunction with GuideStar, is helping us understand how the field can best interact with donors – including those that regularly research charities. Specifically, we are looking at what kinds of information, in what format, and through what channel, will have the most impact on donors’ giving behavior. More on those findings to come soon!
Stay tuned!
Comments
Good stuff!
My frustration is the belief that emotional engagement is somehow less legitimate or more suspect than appeals to logic and reason. Truth is, it’s the emotional part of our brain that recognizes injustice and motivates us to act in the first place.
Nonprofits certainly need to be accountable for how they raise and spend money, but as long as they are staying within acceptable bounds, it’ll never be the decdiing factor for most donors. Nor, I would argue, should it be.
Interesting research on donations, confirmed what I always suspected. never underestimate the power of emotional motivations!
The fact that donors are emotionally driven has always been a big consideration when making a campaign. However, I do think that while emotion triggers the desire to donate, statistics and analytic thinking are what solidify the desire to do so. I think this is why research is important when donating to a charity, especially larger donations. Great interview!
It’s interesting to see you say that, and while it is undeniably true that stats and data can help with some data, i would argue that the assertion reflects conventional wisdom but often doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. I think there may be a parallel here with how people choose Presidents and how they say they do. They say they are driven by the issues, but almost always they are going by likability.
I always love your posted blogs Katya. Anyway, as for me, it is true that the main reason why we give or donate is because of our emotions. The fact only comes next to it. We help because we empathize. We begin feeling the nature of putting ourselves in the shoes of others. Then we realized the fact if how lucky we are compared them.
It is because we have our freewill. It is given to us so that we will have our choice to do everything we want. We are driven by our emotion and realized the fact after.