Donor Preferences Report Cover

How Donors Think

When fundraising among evangelicals, you’d better have a deep understanding of how donors think. Do they want control over how and where their money is used? Are they willing to support untested methods that might be game-changers? Do they want to feel as though they’ve made a difference for one specific individual? Are they passionate about your work?

How Donors Think:  Evangelical Giving Perspectives is the most recent report from Grey Matter Research and Infinity Concepts. The study asks over 600 American evangelical Protestant donors about their giving preferences and passions.

Understanding Donors

Only half of evangelical adults financially supported a non-profit or ministry outside of their church over the past 12 months. Another 12% have not given in the last 12 months, but they did give in the last two or three years, so they have a recent history of giving. (See our report The Giving Gap for more detail.)

You know who’s giving; now you can understand more about how donors think.

Here’s a Quick Taste

Non-profits and ministries are sometimes criticized for being slow to change and unwilling to try new methods. Now we know at least one reason for this: three out of four evangelical donors would rather support commonly used, tried-and-true methods of addressing a need. Only one out of four would rather give toward new methods that have not yet proven to be effective, but which might be game-changers.

If donors are risk-averse, that’s likely to have an impact on an organization’s appetite for risk and experimentation. Unfortunately, reaching for the stars is not what most donors want.

What Else You’ll Learn

In our new report, we also explore the following:

  • What channels donors are responding to, and what channels they’re using to respond
  • Geographically, where donors are giving to help, both overall (local, domestic, international) and specific areas of the world
  • Whether they want to control how and where their money is being used
  • Preferences for playing a small part in an issue that affects many people, or knowing they made a difference for one individual
  • Whether they prefer providing tangible help (food, clothing, water, etc.) or intangible help (education, evangelism, human rights, etc.)
  • How much of their giving goes to work they are not really passionate about
  • What connection they see between giving and being blessed by God (financially or otherwise)

How Donors Think:  Evangelical Giving Perspectives is free by request – just e-mail ron@greymatterresearch.com.

How Can We Help You?

Grey Matter makes reports such as this publicly available.  However, most of our work is for individual clients. This includes helping organizations understand what donors want when it comes to their specific ministry.

What questions keep you up at night? What upcoming decisions would be made in a more informed manner if you knew what your donors and potential donors think about you? We answer these kinds of questions for companies, ministries, non-profits, denominations, and the agencies and consultants which serve them.

How can we help you?

We have A Passion for Research That Makes a Difference. Talk to us about how we can make a difference for you.