Giving in the Attention Economy

The average email subscriber receives over 400 commercial messages per month. We’re all also receiving numerous charitable appeals through multiple channels. It’s a crowded field.

It’s called the Attention Economy, and we’re all fighting for a share of it. Just take a look at a quick list of how our outreach to donors has changed:

What We did 25 Years Ago
Direct Mail
Phonathon
Newsletter or Magazine

What We Do Now
Websites
YouTube
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
SnapChat
Custom Apps
Direct Mail
Phonathon
Crowdfunding
Newsletter or Magazine
Online Magazine Extras
Lots of email
(Did I mention email?)

Despite all our incredible outreach to donors, giving as a percentage of GDP and of discretionary income has hovered at about 2% for the last forty years. As charities, we’re largely just fighting for attention with each other.

You may get lucky and have your appeal hit the Attention Economy lottery. This happened with memorable fundraising campaigns like We Are the World or the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, but as one blogger put it, some of your content will always fail, and there is a frustrating randomness to this.

What’s the solution? Here are a few tactics that are working:

• Personalize. And this means genuine effort, not just the donor’s name. This might include giving history, recent contacts, or having the solicitation come from someone the donor knows. This will take more time, but the benefits are significant. Let donors know you remember them and that they are part of your story.
• Test. No one can tell you how your donor base will react. Take some of your standard solicitations, try something new on a random group, and see if it makes a difference. If it works, build it into the next solicitation. If it doesn’t, try again.
• Build fundraising fusion. This means thinking about all your communication channels and making sure common themes and priorities repeat and have synergy. This not only helps your message get across through the noise, but it also shows mission confidence, which will resonate with donors.
• Eliminate friction. Make your online giving portal and even your paper reply devices as easy as possible to return or click through. Whenever someone tells you that a field or step “has to be there,” fight it. We’ll never get to “one click” donation but we can get close.

We don’t need every appeal to win the Attention Economy sweepstakes.

We do, however, need to be smart about getting donor attention in a crowded field if we expect to see any response.