Leadership Series: Is Change an Uphill Battle?

• impact of the organization’s work;

• efficiency with which the organization uses donated funds;

• presence of a compelling cause;

• donor’s relationship with the organization;

• personal benefit the donor receives by giving; and

• urgency of the need.

World Vision’s marketing efforts have capitalized on all of these motivators and presented current and prospective child sponsors with a real, tangible child who personifies poverty in the developing world. One cannot grasp the enormity of 3 billion people who live on less than $2 a day, but one can understand the needs of a 7-year-old girl named Deysi in El Salvador or 5-year-old Joseph in Chad.

Break the mold
Authors Chip and Dan Heath, in their book, “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” (Random House, 2007), call this the “Mother Theresa Effect” — that is, donors respond better to individuals than to abstract causes.