Here’s what a century-old candy taught me about donor personas
Don't confuse the shape of your donors with their unique flavor and worldview.

Here’s what a century-old candy taught me about donor personas

I’m obsessed with one really old school candy . Originally popular in movie theaters, you can now find a box in the candy aisle of your local big box or drugstore. The ingredients are simple and offer little nutritional value, but hey, we’re talking about candy.

What fascinates me about this candy are the potential combinations. There are seven shapes and five possible flavors. The shapes are: banana, grape bundle, pea pod, pineapple, raspberry, asparagus bundle and tomato. (That’s right, asparagus bundle and tomato, they’ve used the same shapes for over 100 years).?

But as the manufacturer says : “The shapes are only a tease–the key to their true flavor lies in the color.”

In my favorite candy, there are five possible color/flavors: raspberry (red), anise/licorice (black), lime (green), orange (orange), and lemon (yellow). So, you could have an orange-flavored banana or a lemon-flavored tomato, because the flavors correspond to the colors, not the shapes.

There are endless passion, background, and psychology combinations in our donor bases.

So, math nerds, this means that in this box of candy, you can have 35 potential combinations and some of them are weird and unexpected. And interestingly, the laws of probability dictate that only about two of the exact same candy appear in any single box.

This is a lot like our donor pools. We often place donors into broad categories based on things like recency of their gift, what we knew about them decades ago, or even worse, where we “think they should give.” This is antiquated thinking and leads to a giving strategy that isn’t aligned with a donor’s passions or worldview.

A few examples:

  • For higher education fundraisers: How about that business major who really loved participating in the marching band? You’re probably focusing on their major or college, but you would notice if you look at their clicks, video watches, and "likes" that they really enjoy that content because they found a home with the band. You’re using a demographic filter to market to this donor, not following their demonstrated passion.
  • Imagine a consistent event attendee who only gives to crowdfunding projects. They come to every social event. However, donation records reveal that they only support things that are new and different, never responding to general fund appeals. While they love a party, giving for this person is really about innovation.
  • What about that volunteer, committee member, or social media ambassador who you know has a high net worth who you hope gives to the next campaign because of the impact they can have? Multiple meetings and proposals have lagged in response, but they continue to participate socially. The key for this donor is collaboration, and instead, you’re pitching them ROI.

It’s time to match our messages to the psychographic diversity of our donor base.

There are millions of potential passion, personality, and style combinations in your donor base. While givers all share a love for the mission, they each approach giving with different worldviews. That’s what we call a persona , and today personas are based more and more on predictive analytics, using the mountain of data we have on our donors.

Using technology that was previously available only to the largest companies, nonprofits of all sizes now can use actionable personas. Within weeks, you can know your donors’ psychographic profiles from reliable data sources. Working with our partner Carnegie, we call these Acuity Darts, and they’re a powerful way to hit the bullseye with donor outreach.

This psychographic approach to engaging donors is a game changer. When you know your donors’ modes of thinking, you can confidently choose the right communication outlets to prioritize and know exactly what to say. Send innovative thinkers an overview of startup and crowdfunding efforts. Invite collaborators to social giving opportunities. Double down on making your mission-driven thinkers feel like heroes. Enter a meeting with a major donor not only with their giving history and wealth profile but also with ideas about how they approach, well, everything.

It’s time to move from “LYBUNTs get this, SYBUNTS get this” to truly meeting donors with messages that match their thinking. You can do it incrementally. Once you have the profiles, you can start slowly with things like varied text and images in existing communications or by simply prioritizing specific outreach efforts based on the personas.

The future is in donor-driven, persona-based fundraising.

A donor persona strategy is all about moving away from fundraiser-driven segmentation to a donor-driven psychology approach. I predict many giving programs will be making this shift because it’s now possible for every size of organization. And this is a key way that we will engage donor passion, attract a more inclusive, purposeful base, and avert the trend of donor decline.

The future is in making a personal, mission-driven match with donors. Most of us are putting donors in big boxes right now, and that’s a big miss because every giver sees and interacts with the world uniquely. It’s time to embrace this diversity of outlook and truly personalize the donor experience. Nonprofits that do this will have better results, because they will be amplifying the joy of giving on a donor’s terms.

Want to try it out? I’ll get you access to your personal psychographic profile, and we can talk about how you can begin communicating with the most engaged and ready donors based on how they see the world. Drop me a line. I’ll even send you a box of candy.

Patricia Maben

Difference Maker at 3 Enrollment Marketing, Inc.

5 个月

They are good!

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