#1 Think of small gift donors as impulse buyers. It needs to be as easy for them to give $10 to you as it is for them to pick up a candy bar at the checkout aisle. Katherine Lumb made this great remark on Twitter a while back: "Usability 2.0 is not so much 'I can't figure this out' as it is 'I don't have time for this sh*t'."
When you're asking for a $5 - $25 donation, you're not competing with other charitable giving. Instead, you're up against daily consumer spending. It's a quick choice. Not unlike ordering a pizza instead of cooking dinner or picking up a magazine at the grocery.
The mental barrier to giving is very low. But the expectation for an easy process is extremely high.
This American Life (my very favorite show) routinely asks listeners to give $5 or $10 to cover the streaming costs of its free podcasts. Keep it free. Keep it from burdening our home station. Reasonable request, right? I've gone to the Web site to give three times, but have never actually gone through with it. Why? Because I'm confronted with this - a form designed for pledge week:
It's long. Requires a credit card. And doesn't appear to offer to save my information to make it easy for me next time.
Compare that it Kiva.org. Hipsters' favorite little international loan collective. They ask for ~$25. A little higher, but still in the impulse give category. After I fill in my amount, it can be this simple:
Can I choose to give by credit card? Yeah. Or, I can just login with Paypal and it knows all my address and personal information + let's me give with one click.
It's fast, easy and relevant to the way I want to give.
How can This American Life take this impulse give approach into their own fundraising efforts? Four suggestions:
- Make PayPal a payment option on the site.
- Make recurring payments easy - either automatic or text / email to confirm
- Offer text to give (The host asks for a $5 gift during the program. Asking people to text a short code to a number to automatically have a $5 charge added to their phone bill is about as easy as it gets)
- Partner with iTunes or other fulfillment sources to let listeners name their own price for the podcast (letting them give while they're directly getting the value)
My friend works for World Nomads who do travel insurance and other stuff. They also raise funds for projects in countries like Nepal and India (the subject of their Footprint documentary series).
If you book insurance, they allow you to donate $1 to a project by just ticking one box. Simplicity is a beautiful (and helpful thing).
And while I don't think we should expect everything to be easy in this realm (giving sometimes involves sacrifice) the simpler the process, the higher the chance of people parting with their money.
Posted by: Kate Richardson | January 05, 2009 at 12:49 AM
Jen, here's something I came across:
"Email payment account methods, such as PayPal, will jump from 5% of all online transaction volume to 11% by 2012"
Also says 150 million US accounts last year - presumably significantly higher now.
http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2780&Itemid=128
Posted by: Leigh | January 04, 2009 at 08:07 PM
I would love some info on how many folks use paypal. The Junior League here in Cedar Rapids went to PayPal for online stuff a few years ago and it seemed like a steep learning curve for many - but once they were past it, it was easy.
I like the idea of equating low level giving to impulse buying. Very clever - and true.
Posted by: Jen Neumann | January 04, 2009 at 07:48 PM
Yep...Richard McPherson commented on this very obstacle when he spoke in Columbus a few months ago at our Assoc. of Fundraising Prof. lunch...make it easy to donate BEFORE you ask for their deep-info.
In TRIBES, Seth Godin urges us to get the volunteers involved more...more working...more networking & expanding their volunteer base...turning all the volunteers into stakeholders who donate $ because they WANT TO!
Thank for this post.
Posted by: Jim Coe | January 04, 2009 at 07:21 PM