Nuisance Giving and Donor Sentiment

When reporting on the 2022 results of charitable giving in the United States, Giving USA’s 2023 report tells us that “Giving by individuals totaled an estimated $319.04 billion, declining 6.4 percent in 2022 (a decline of 13.4 percent, when adjusted for inflation).” Why these numbers haven’t prompted wholesale change in how nonprofits interact with donors continues to be perplexing. A 13.4 percent decline is a big deal — no matter what industry or sector you’re discussing. If a for-profit business had that much of a decline, you can count on them to make significant changes. But in the nonprofit sector — not so much.

So what’s a donor to do when the existing “system” of giving is off-putting? As we know from studies, the act of giving increases personal happiness, gives the donor a sense of well-being and purpose, and even, according to some research, reduces blood pressure, lowers anxiety and depression, and diminishes stress. (A few studies claim that donors also live longer than non-donors.)

What if a donor feels the opposite of all that good stuff delineated above, and the very act of listening to or reading a pitch/solicitation actually induces stress and anxiety? Is it possible that the reticence to change the way we solicit charitable gifts is actually perpetuating the downward trend that charitable giving is currently experiencing?

I promise you that continuing to fundraise like it’s 1975 isn’t doing us any favors, and if we continue to resist change that aligns with the 21st century, those numbers will, sadly, continue to decline.

Recently I’ve seen two examples in the “marketplace” that, in my opinion, confirm my pessimism about organizations that continue to do things a certain way because “that’s how it’s always been done”. The two examples are the new-ish term “nuisance giving” along with the advent of charitable facilitators like “Silent Donor ”.

Nuisance Giving

Nuisance giving is a term that folks have been using for donors who give simply to make a charity stop soliciting them. I read a piece recently where a nonprofit was congratulating itself that it “only” sent 3 solicitations every month to its prospects. On Giving Tuesday, I’ve seen well over 100 solicitations personally — some of them sent by charities that think it’s a great idea to email prospects every hour throughout the day. At a certain point, many people will just give something to make the fundraiser (or solicitation) go away.

Of course, we know that the “I’ll give you a donation if you just go away” message gets highjacked by the gift itself, a gift that prompts not only incessant mailings and solicitations of all kinds, but that ensures the solicitations will continue for much longer than if you never gave at all. And we wonder why the rate of repeat donations (a gift in a year following a first gift) is close to 18%.

“Silent Donor”

“Silent Donor ” came onto the nonprofit scene only recently, but it appears that it has become enormously successful (or at least the press around it suggests that.)

Started by a donor who wanted to do good but was fed up with the onslaught of solicitations that came with almost any donation to a nonprofit, Silent Donor’s tagline is “keep the donation, lose the backlash”.

Ouch.

We know that the backlash refers not only to the ongoing solicitation by fundraisers who are constantly told to “just bring back a check”, but that backlash also includes the litany of solicitations that come from the nonprofit selling/sharing your name to another nonprofit.

So Silent Donor smartly saw an unmet need in nonprofit giving. Silent Donor is the place where you can make a donation, have the recipient nonprofit vetted by the company, and get your tax deduction — all anonymously. They do this by having created a Donor Advised Fund (DAF) program, but the system seems to incentivize donations going immediately to the designated nonprofit. (However, their website points out that some donors leave their money in the account for a bit, which is more in line with other DAF programs.)

To use Silent Donor, though, the transaction/administration fee is 5% of the funds that goes through the company — much higher than typical DAF programs that charge between .75% and 1.50%.

Isn’t that interesting that donors are willing to pay a substantial premium just to get fundraisers “off their backs”? It sure sounds like many donors just assume that relationship-based philanthropy is a bit of a pipe dream, and transactional giving is an inherent part of the game.

Giving shouldn’t be painful, and it shouldn’t induce the need to hide. In fact, my guess is that without even a sense of an authentic relationship with a nonprofit you give to, the wonderful benefits of giving (sense of well-being, purpose, longer life) no longer apply.

We have the ability to change this. Let’s get started.

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Lisa

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