Why You Should Ask Your Donors for $100
I’ll bet that if you look at the distribution of your organization’s last annual fund gifts, you’ll find that by far the most common gift amounts are $25, $50, and $100.
To demonstrate this, we compiled a database of over 1.4 million anonymized annual fund gifts from more than 80 non-profits doing direct mail and online fundraising—more than $250 million in gifts.
This chart shows the distribution of those gifts from $1 to $100. Donors gave 4,324 different gift amounts in that range. But notice how most donors skip from $10 to $25, then to $50, and then all the way to $100 without stopping in between? These organizations have used a variety of ask amounts and techniques, but the results are still gifts in the same round numbers.
The likelihood of these donors giving $50 is two times more than giving anything between $25 and $50. The likelihood of them giving $100 is more than three times more than giving anything between $50 and $100. The following chart gives the details.
Your goals with ask amounts, then, are
to move givers below $25 to $25;
to move $25 givers to $50;
to move $50 givers to $100.
I don’t mean that the only amounts for which you ask are $25, $50 or $100. What I do mean is that you should use a table of ask amounts that combines the two psychological factors of priming and round numbers.
It also means that a table of ask amounts is a better method to use than a formula that multiplies the last gift by a percentage.
Example:
The last gift was $25.00. The ask string should be $100, $50, $25. It has these advantages:
It uses the round numbers with which people are comfortable (cognitive accessibility in psychological terms).
It uses the principle of priming by starting with a high but still-reasonable amount. The highest number is always first. The goal is to anchor the donors’ thinking with a higher number of $100. Now moving to $50 looks reasonable.
By using the donor’s last gift as the third number, it encourages the donor to at least continue at that level.
Example: The last gift was $41.00. The ask string should be $100, $75, $50. In this case the donor's last gift is not a round number. So, for the third ask number we round $41 up to the next common round number.
I recommend that you use our downloadable table of ask strings. It has been developed through data analysis and experience and incorporates the principles I’m discussing. It works hard to encourage those gifts of $100, $50 and $25 that you need.
For more information on asking, read the following posts:
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Contact Sarah Gnerre, CFRE, VP of Philanthropy, at 1-802-387-3091 or sarahg@fivemaples.com!
