The Truths Behind Why People Give

By Katya Andresen

Why do people give? It's the question we all really, really want to answer: Why do people give, and how do we get them to give more? OK, so maybe that's two questions. But if you're a fundraiser, the reason you ask the first question is that you absolutely must answer the second. It's your job.

I've spent the past six months reading every study I could find that seeks to answer these questions. Many of them were in the excellent compendium of research studies titled "The Science of Giving," produced by the Society for Judgment and Decision Making.

After reflecting on what a lot of smart people have documented, I think the answers come down to several essential truths. (Note: All of the researchers mentioned here are referenced in the book.)

TRUTH No. 1

Giving is mostly emotional and irrational

The right brain tends to rule the left in giving, and people donate out of feeling more than thinking. In fact, if you get people to stop and think, they tend to give less.

For example, one group of researchers tried different ways of asking for donations to help sick children. These researchers wanted to see just how our feelings about ourselves and our empathy for others affect the decision to give — and how much those factors influence the amounts we give. They put the heart against the head by having people focus on how they felt about sick children versus having them calculate the value of the children's lives.

Researchers Stephan Dickert, Namika Sagara and Paul Slovic found that donor emotion definitely ruled. The best predictor of the decision to donate anything at all was how the participants were feeling about themselves — for example, a desire to make themselves feel better or avoid regret about not donating. When they heard about the pain or need of sick children, they wanted to leave those negative feelings behind by making donations.

The amount people gave was affected by the degree of empathy they felt toward the children. Donations were higher when folks were primed to think of their feelings. The more they were primed to think in an analytical, deliberate way, the less they gave. Feeling beat thinking in dollars donated. What does that mean to you? Appeal to the heart, not the head.

TRUTH No. 2

Giving is personal

The closer we feel to a cause, the more likely we are to give. Just how much do personal connections influence giving?

That's the question researchers Rebecca Ratner, Min Zhao and Jennifer Clarke have explored. They found that when people have a personal connection to a cause (or know someone who does), it can lead them to be more  supportive.

TRUTH No. 3

Truths No. 1 and 2 are really hard to change

Researchers have tried to figure out if you can strip emotion and parochialism from donation decision making and get people to think more objectively. None of the efforts had earth-shattering results — and the attempts tended to lower giving.

If you're a fundraiser, you could try to change how people give. Or you could just roll with it.

TRUTH No. 4

Giving makes people happy

Researcher Michal Ann Strahilevitz puts it this way: "Most fundraisers probably don't think of themselves in the business of selling happiness to donors, but that is … their job."

Strahilevitz, Lalin Anik, Lara Aknin, Michael Norton and Elizabeth Dunn have shown why this is true:

Giving makes people happy. In studies, people who committed random acts of kindness were significantly happier than those who didn't, and spending money on others makes us happier than spending money on ourselves.
The emotional benefits of giving are highest when we spread out giving into separate experiences rather than doing it once (the sum of each positive experience is bigger than the high of one gift). This underlines just how important recurring gifts are!
Happier people help others more, and they give more. A positive mood makes you nicer! This makes a circle: Giving makes you happy, and when you're happy you give more, which makes you happier, which makes you give more.

TRUTH No. 5

Giving is a social act

Since we're all social creatures who are well-versed in peer pressure, it shouldn't come as a surprise that we're all about keeping up with the Joneses even when it comes to philanthropy.

Researchers Richard Martin and John Randal showed this when they placed a clear donation box in a museum. They watched visitors to see when they were most likely to give. They tried sparsely filling the box, and they tried stuffing the box. They played with filling it with big bills versus coins.  Then they carefully noted what happened.

Having some money in the box significantly increased giving. When the box was empty, giving was at its lowest. People tended to give what they saw in the box. If people saw bills, they tended to give the same denominations of bills. If they saw coins, they gave loose change. The smaller the "peer pressure" level of donation, the more often people chose to make donations. It's easier to go along with the crowd if it's cheap!

So when you fundraise, make it clear other people are supporting you. If you use tickers or thermometers in your campaigns, don't show progress until you HAVE progress. An empty thermometer will probably perform like the empty box.

TRUTH NO. 6

These are sweeping  generalizations

Test for yourself. And happy  fundraising. FS

Katya Andresen is chief operating officer at Network for Good and author of Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog. Reach her at katya.andresen@networkforgood.org or follow her on Twitter at @katyaN4G