Patterns in Giving
Donor patterns tend to recur in giving, much like the repeating patterns we can see in Scottish tartans or Portuguese cobblestones. Some donors crave variety, while others value familiarity. Some are advance planners; others rely on what “feels right” in the moment. No matter their preferences, donors tend to be consistent in those patterns.
Knowing how donors think, what they prefer, and what donor patterns they rely on in their giving makes fundraising far more efficient and effective.
Grey Matter Research, specialists in serving donor-supported organizations, discovered the donor patterns of over 1,100 givers. Our latest report – Donor Patterns: How Donors Typically Give – explores these questions in-depth. Do contributors want to support innovation or they prefer to stick with common approaches? Do they approach new organizations with doubt or an assumption of trustworthiness? Are they even open to learning about new organizations? Do they do research or rely on gut feel?
Here are a couple of points to whet your appetite.
Avoiding Innovation
Donor-supported organizations often take criticism for lack of innovation. But it is hard to innovate when few donors want to support that. Only 18% of American donors prefer to fund new methods of addressing needs that may be game-changers, but are not yet proven. The vast majority (82%) would rather support commonly used, tried-and-true methods of addressing needs. And even among the 18% who prefer to support innovation, just 2% express a strong preference for this.
Group over Individual
Here’s another one: you’ve likely heard donors express that some needs are overwhelming, raising doubts of whether their gift really will make a difference. For example, it’s hard to grasp that nearly three-quarters of a billion people in the world are facing hunger, or that around 43 million Americans are functionally illiterate. What will my $50 accomplish when the need is so great?
Yet nearly three out of four donors (72%) say in their own giving, they prefer playing a small part in addressing an issue affecting many people. Just 28% prefer making a difference for one specific individual (such as child sponsorship or a microloan), with only 4% strongly preferring this. The kinds of donors who prefer helping one specific individual tend to be younger, lower-income, and give smaller amounts.
Going into Detail
In Donor Patterns, we not only look at donors as a group, but by various critical factors:
- Age
- Gender
- Household income
- How much they give
- Political perspective
- Religious faith and level of engagement
Donor Patterns reveals the big picture, but also breaks the data down so you can see the patterns among different types of donors: Catholics, younger people, women, larger donors, Protestants, seniors, small donors, etc. Also, we show you not just the preferences, but the strength of those preferences.
Learn more about the perspectives of American donors in Donor Patterns: How Donors Typically Give, from Grey Matter Research. Donor Patterns is free by request – just e-mail ron@greymatterresearch.com.
How Can We Help You?
Grey Matter makes reports such as these publicly available, but most of our work is for individual clients, whether the topic is donating, branding, religious beliefs, consumer behavior, or anything else.
Just a few recent projects:
- A national survey of Latino donors to help a donor-supported organization communicate appropriately with this population segment.
- Helping a faith-based organization rebrand by exploring how their cause and organization are perceived among current and potential donors.
- Research for a fundraising agency to explore the impact of imagery and messaging on donors who would consider helping the homeless.
- Qualitative research to help a Catholic organization understand their donors’ experiences.
What do you want to learn? What upcoming decisions could you make in a more informed manner if you knew what your target market thinks and feels about your organization, why they give (or why they stopped giving), or what they want, need, and expect from you? We answer these kinds of questions for non-profits, faith-based ministries, companies, and the agencies and consultants which serve them.
How can Grey Matter help you?
We have A Passion for Research That Makes a Difference. Talk to us about how we can make a difference for you.