Following the demographics in the new landscape for charity fundraising
There is an old proverb which teaches that although charity begins at home, it should never end there. And if there was ever a year to prove the truth of these words, it was 2020.
Despite being locked down at home amid unprecedented social and economic uncertainty, the British public donated to charities in record amounts. £5.4 billion was donated between January and June 2020 - an increase of £800 million compared to the same period in 2019. People may have been stuck at home - but their generosity was very much out and about.
But do these figures disguise a year of mass change? Charities, like so many other sectors, had to adjust and adapt to a new landscape, with new ways of working and new consumer behaviours. For many charities, this new landscape came with increased demands for their services, but limited their capacity to serve them.
This new landscape also worked to accelerate the move towards digital payments. With no more commuting, events on pause and retail limited, opportunities for charities to capture physical cash or one-off donations diminished.
Consumers have moved quickly towards technologies which allow them to pay via their smartphones - with payment cash app downloads increasing by a massive 94% in 2020. Equally, platforms like GoFundMe and Kickstarter have worked to make giving easier and more accessible - but consumers are also happy to go direct to the charities too. Last year saw an increase from 13% to 24% in donations made directly through charity websites.
These changes are shaping what the future looks like for charities. So how can charities best respond to reach audiences in this new era? Here are some key areas:
The need for ease
It’s important to recognise that, amidst all the radical change, we as humans are fundamentally the same. People in 2019 and 2021 live in very different worlds - but they are still the same people.
Although we can be rational, considered and deliberate, we are more often impressionable, instinctive and intuitive. How charities leverage these natural qualities is decisive.
Whether the objective is to pressure companies or governments to change policies, encourage veganism during a particular period or drive monthly donations to an important cause, it all comes down to changing behaviour. As donation behaviour differs depending on individual motivations and preferences, understanding donation drivers is important so as to know which fundraising methods to prioritise.
And so to quote the words of legendary behavioural scientist Richard Thaler: If you want people to do something, make it easy.
Clarity is key. Making the routes to donation clear, and removing the speedbumps and areas of friction on the journey to donation is essential. Charities should also include core costs in communicating (your gift of £10 could...) as this allows donors to easily see how they are making a difference.
The idea is to reduce the decision making load on the consumer as much as possible; making choices easier is the best way to influence behaviour. This is fundamentally a design-thinking issue: better choice architecture makes it easier to make good choices.
The need for understanding
By August 2020, YouGov data found 36% of Brits hadn’t donated to any charities in the past three months. This was an 8% increase since August 2019, indicating that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on charitable behaviour, and a sign of charity fatigue setting in.
In order to keep driving donations during these uncertain times, charities must look to tap into new audience segments, extend their reach and future proof their brand.
Charities need to carefully understand what motivates people. While there are some universal needs, different groups and demographics will naturally have unique responses to different messages.
Age plays a decisive role. YouGov data indicates that while only 26% of Gen Zers/Millenials reported making an impact on their preferred causes through donating, in comparison to 51% of the Mature demographic (aged 51+), they reported making an impact through Advocacy (5%), Peer-to-Peer impact (17%) and Word of Mouth (14%).
Source: YouGov
Charities will need to modify their approach based on these different generations - with older generations more likely to make donations and younger generations showing more support via spreading awareness and advocating the brand and cause - or getting involved.
A diversity of tactics and messaging is necessary to influence the most likely behaviours. Simply put, campaigns aimed at older audiences should emphasise donations. But if volunteering and engagement is what’s needed, aiming for a younger audience might be more effective.
Young donors
Aged between 18-29, young donors are motivated by the chance of making a positive difference to the world. They tend to make ad hoc donations - but if they are passionate about a cause they will actively educate others about it.
Charities looking to engage young donors should be interactive and unafraid to start trends. Trends and competitions like the Ice Bucket Challenge and Movember have sped up volumes of donations and acted as a way to drive fast, organic brand awareness.
In terms of media, young donors live in digital. Look at ways of delivering a multi-layered channel approach to reach this audience in different environments such as podcasts, online TV, social media and blogs.
The optimal messaging approach to influence young donors will be bold and include positive mission statements to demonstrate how they can make a difference. A good example is WWF’s Adopt a Better Future campaign.
And think about partnerships - are there campaign groups or social movements whose goals align with yours? Consider joining forces on short-run tactical campaigns to educate youth audiences about the numerous overlapping ways of living out their ideals.
Middle aged donors
Spanning the ages between 30-50, middle aged donors are both regular and ad hoc contributors. They are community leaders and are often willing to volunteer their time for causes they believe in. Critically, they are most likely to be motivated by quantitative facts and figures.
Middle aged donors will respond well to messaging which uses collective pronouns “us” and “we” to relate to their community-driven mindset.
Research shows that using a mix of radio and TV is an effective recipe for reaching this audience. Charities can use the qualities of each channel to reinforce the other. By harnessing strong audio brand cues in a radio campaign, charities can trigger visual recall of previous TV advertisements.
Mature donors
Mature donors, those aged 50+, are a hugely influential donor group. These are people who often choose to shop locally and make an effort to support their local economy. They are happy to spend more money to help out those in their community.
In terms of gaining the most reach against this audience, the optimum channel mix will mostly include broadcast and print press media. If we take a deeper dive into mature donors’ media habits we see they prefer watching live TV in the evenings, often for up to 30 hours per week.
For charities targeting this older audience, a combination of brand and DRTV can drive the best responses - sponsoring the right programme and package can also be a cost effective way of reaching large numbers.
Where campaigns feature depends
Omni-channel does not mean one size fits all. Campaigns don’t necessarily have to begin and end on the box. From Facebook to podcasts, there are an abundance of opportunities for charities to get their messages in front of the right people. But the messages must be tailored to work across channels and contribute to a larger story that draws passive supporters into active contributors.
A heart-rending animal charity advert might be incredibly effective on TV but that doesn’t mean it will translate to Instagram.
Targeted local messaging will grab the attention of mature audiences and win over their support. They are more likely to be influenced by charity shops than their younger counterparts. Give Blood UK, for example, effectively reached its older audience through hyper-local messaging to drive action from its audience to donate blood in their area.
So it makes sense to reach mature donors with community based fundraising opportunities in order to drive the most sign-ups to fundraiser events. They enjoy exercising outdoors, so events such as Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life are popular. Giving donors the ability to lead and run their own fundraiser events with loved ones works well for mature groups too, like with Macmillan Coffee Mornings.
Positive appeal tactics are adopted by the majority of animal charities rather than highlighting the negative impact of not donating. Simply put, we prefer to feel good and see the joy that our donation can cause - rather than the harm caused by our inaction. It is about finding a balance.
Whilst negative appeals are still used, psychological studies show they can be seen as an irritation and cause people to switch off. They induce feelings of guilt and distress which can lead us to look away. And there are questions of exploitation to consider, such as turning individuals who need our help into “victims” whose complex situations cannot be fully reflected in a simple ad.
Positive appeals can be used across multiple channels and are effective in reaching older donors.
Homing in to individual stories creates resonances between the subject and the viewer that effectively motivates action - even if the individual isn’t a human. The use of charity appeals that focus on telling a story of the plight of one animal has been very effective in creating social change and promote advocacy. The Donkey Sanctuary, along with many charities, uses compelling storytelling for emotional persuasion in their TV campaigns. TV is the most emotive channel and therefore ideal for charities to build an emotional connection with their audience.
Coming in to land
But it’s important to remember that activity inspired by the biggest screen in the house converts into action on a smaller screen. So charity websites, and especially their donation or ecommerce landing pages, need to be optimised to make subsequent action as smooth, secure and painless as possible, especially on mobile. Multiple pages linked to separate simultaneous campaigns with subtly different designs and messaging can provide charities with vital in-house data on donor behaviour.
This information on effective conversion tactics - what works and what doesn’t - should always feed back into the next round of campaign planning. The Institute of Cancer Research adopted such a test and learn approach with rapid editing and updating of different campaign landing page combinations. A staggering 817% uplift in donation conversions was achieved and also the cost-per-donation against previous campaigns was cut by 91%.
Utilising the Google Ad grant
My final piece of advice is the most practical. Charities should take advantage of Google’s Ad Grant.
The Google Ad Grants programme provides free Google Ads to select charitable organisations, and is designed to help organisations extend their public service messages to a global audience in an effort to make a greater impact on the world. This scheme provides charities with a powerful media inventory potentially worth up to £400,000.
Charity may begin at home, but it doesn’t end there. Even during a pandemic. Whilst it’s important for charities to understand the broad societal impact of Cov-19, it is equally important to recognise how little it has changed us at our core as humans.
We still have the same needs and instincts, but we are all individuals. Those individual differences are amplified across generations - so different demographics should be approached in different ways.
