Top Three Donor Concerns

In a recent poll of donors to international relief and development organizations, Campbell Rinker asked 580 respondents what top three issues they would most likely support in the fight against global poverty.

The results showed that donors have a strong preference for meeting basic human needs. The most supportable issues were famine (62%) and education (60%) followed by clean water and sanitation (55%). In contrast, political and social issues ranked much lower on the scale. Donors were much less likely to support efforts to combat racial or religious discrimination (19%), lack of democracy (10%), and civil wars (3%).

Donors under 40 years of age were significantly more likely to choose lack of education and racial or religious discrimination as among their top-three issues. In contrast, older donors were more likely to consider overpopulation a major issue.

Compared to Caucasian donors, donors of other ethnic backgrounds were more likely to be concerned with the lack of education and racial and religious discrimination.

CLICK HERE for a graph of these findings. Results shown have a
+/-4.1% margin of error at the 95% confidence level.

Gift Sensitivity and the Art of the Ask

What do your donors consider to be a reasonable and appropriate ask amount? What amount do they expect you to ask for? What ask amount is likely to produce the highest response? What ask amount is likely to provide the most income? Campbell Rinker has adapted a popular consumer pricing model to help address these questions and more. Our Gift Sensitivity Meter™ assesses donors’ perceptions of acceptable ask amounts.

Using survey techniques on the phone, in the mail or on the web, your donors (or prospects) provide four numbers in response to simple questions about how much they are likely to give. The questions are designed to detect the acceptable limits of an ask amount. The analysis produces more valid results than other methods because none of the figures are suggested by the researcher. The donors answer with a specific number value that defines their opinion.

When all the data is collected, we plot the responses to these questions on a graph, CLICK HERE.

The first key factor is the Expected Ask Amount, at which equal numbers of people see the ask amount as large or small (where B and C meet in the example).

Another key factor is the Safest Ask Amount, at which the fewest people would rule out donating because the ask amount is too large or too small (where A and D meet in the example). This amount is likely to maximize percentage response, or said another way, is least likely to dissuade donors from giving.

Gift Sensitivity Meter™ also defines a “Range of Acceptable Ask Amounts.” Outside this range, ask amounts may result in decreased net revenue, because the amount is too small for donors to take seriously or too large for them to even consider.

For this reason, the results of a Gift Sensitivity Meter™ depend on the type of donors interviewed and the organization in question. The responses vary widely. Donors to one international relief organization expected the ask amount to be $20, while the amount to maximize consideration was $15 – fairly consistent figures. However, donors to a hospital charity expected to be asked for $85. In contrast, the amount to maximize consideration of $40 was less than half what they expected.

Success in fundraising often comes down to whether your ask is appropriate or not. The Gift Sensitivity Meter™ is a tool that shines a bright light on donor views and helps development officers ask for the right amounts.

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DonorSpeakT is a free publication of Campbell Rinker, a market research firm dedicated to helping organizations obtain accurate feedback from their constituents through surveys, focus groups, personal interviews, donor file analysis and advanced statistical modeling.