Four Characteristics of Senior Givers

4) Older donors respond more to emotional pleas than action-oriented language. For the Vancouver Island Marmot Recovery Foundation, McKinnon says, an image that works on the outer of its direct mail is a picture of a Vancouver Island Marmot with a word bubble that says, "Will you please help me." "That's something that's more likely to appeal to the senior, I think, than somebody who's a 40-year-old activist that wants pollution shut down in a factory nearby," he adds.