Ever wonder why you donate money to charity?
What about getting someone out there to care about you, your nonprofit, and donate?
You must first FEEL something before you give money to an online fundraising campaign. You then justify that decision with logic.
All too often, nonprofits will rattle off statistics or boring bits of information that don’t serve to get someone excited and bought-in to their vision. They then wonder why no one is giving money!
I’m going to run through several key emotions that cause people to give money online.
If you’d like to learn about other hacks, techniques, and psychological tricks to get people to give, then you’re gonna wanna check out my upcoming book going through all the Nonprofit Psychological Fundraising Hacks.
I’ve put together a new GUIDE that’s packed with science-backed nonprofit fundraising methods, resources, strategies, and killer marketing methods.
You should check it out if you want to get more donations and you want to fast-track the entire process.
1. Empathy
When it comes to our focus and life perspective, there are three core states we can be in.
- Focused on our own emotions, thoughts, and goals. Often times, we feel a bit selfish when doing this, but it’s necessary. Someone who does this to the extreme is described as narcissistic or self-centered.
- Focus on someone else’s emotions, thoughts, and goals. We feel what they feel, and to a certain degree, we momentarily lose our “sense of self.”
- Focused on the situation. Rationally observing the situation that’s unfolding like a scientist. This is a problem-solving mode.
These three mental states are backed up in the book NLP: The Essential Guide to Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
Empathy refers to the second mental state, where we FEEL what someone else is feeling. We then want to do something to alleviate their pain (because it gives us pain) or celebrate their joy, because we take pleasure in seeing them happy.
Love and empathy are closely tied together. When we love someone, we care about their wellbeing without thinking about our own. We momentarily lose a sense of self.
Someone who donates money to a charity feels a HIGH DEGREE of empathy with either the person asking them for the donation or the target demographic the nonprofit is helping.
2. Rapport
Rapport is very closely tied to empathy, but it’s actually a precursor. To feel empathy with someone, you must first be in rapport with them.
You tend FEEL in rapport with someone when you agree with their beliefs, lifestyle, ideas, and likely have a similar world view. Some indicators include:
- Similar world view and values
- Same social class or upbringing
- Part of the same tribe or group
- Both have the same aspirations, hobbies, etc.
Going back to Kindergarden, if you want to make friends, you want to be as similar as possible to the people you’re trying to bond with. You don’t want to accentuate your differences.
These similarities could even be as simple as gender. For example, if a mother sees a mother bear defending and her cub from predators, that person feels a certain degree of kinship with them.
It sounds silly, but if that person was a bear, they’d do the same in that situation. Similarities develop rapport and rapport enhances our feelings of empathy with others.
3. Alleviate Pain or Feel Joy
Once you have developed rapport and empathy with someone, they will FEEL pain if you are hurt. You can even watch a video of a complete stranger falling down and wince.
“Ouch… that’s gotta hurt.”
Great fundraising pages will accentuate this unsettling feeling until the potential donor says “I can’t stand it. I’m going to donate. At least then I’ll be helping.”
This is the real reason why you see those horrible television fundraising commercials that prey on any human being’s emotions. They showcase children with swollen bellies or dogs that have been discarded.
Know what I mean?
Yeah… it sucks. Any normal person seeing a child in pain would want to help.
If done correctly, you can focus a person’s mind on the pain experienced by the target demographic in order to get them to help out.
Keep in mind that done in the wrong way, this can be extremely manipulative. But, if done for a good cause and in the right way, it can be very effective. The same can be true for positive emotions.
Most of us like seeing when someone is truly happy. Especially if they have a wildly genuine happy reaction.
I’m sure that you’ve seen videos that have been passed around on Facebook, like the one where an older man is gushing over a beautiful rainbow.
We can’t help but smile!
Knowing that a donation will help someone else’s life in a large will make us feel joy. It’s one of the core reasons that people donate online.
4. Positive Expectancy and Trust
It’s very rare that someone will give money to a nonprofit selflessly.
They want to see change happen. They’re giving money to make a difference.
According to the CEO of Achieve and researcher for The Millennial Impact Derrick Feldmann, “What motivates millennials is a desire to affect THEIR cause through YOUR organization with their friends.”
This is also true of older generations. Now a days, with only a small fraction of a donation going towards helping the in need demographic, the public is more skeptical than ever before.
For some charities and nonprofits, anywhere from 50 – 80% of their fundraising dollars go towards overhead costs. NOT the actual people that they were designed to help.
That’s insane!
Would you give $100 if you knew that $85 of it was paying someone’s salary and only $15 was helping out the individuals in need? I don’t think so.
You must PROVE to potential donors that their money is actually going to help people. This allows them to expect that something positive will come from the action of giving.
The only reason why a donor believes your claims is because you’ve built up trust and credibility. This is the foundation from which a donation is made.
Without trust, money is not changing hands.
5. Anger or Disgust
When we see injustice in the world, we get angry.
The same can be said of any event that violates how we believe the world should work.
For example, in 2012, a video surfaced online where a bus monitor named Karen Klein was bullied by local kids. They hurled profanity, insults, and threats her way.
One even said, “you don’t have a family because they all killed themselves because they don’t want to be near you.” Klein’s oldest son killed himself 10 year ago.
This video was shared all over the web and people were:
- Outraged
- Disgusted
- Ashamed
It made people feel like an injustice had happened and it had to be righted in some way. An Indiegogo campaign was launched for her and she ended raising $703,168!
These emotions directly led to donations. By giving money, people felt a little bit better and that they had “at least done something” to combat the wickedness.
6. Identity and Obligation
The next reason why people give money in person and online comes down to the feeling of identity consistency and obligation. Let me explain.
When you commit to a belief, cause, or decision (even in a small way), you will feel a sense of cognitive dissonance if you do something that conflicts with that commitment. You’ll feel anxious, nervous, and inauthentic. This will cause you to comply with your original commitment.
For example, if someone comes up to you and asks you these questions:
- Do you believe you are a good person?
- Do you believe in supporting the environment?
- Have you contributed to supporting this in the past?
And then asks you to support a charity initiative, then you’ll be far more likely to comply with that request. Why?
Because you’ve already painted yourself as a upstanding charitable member of society. To act in a way that is inconsistent with that image would hurt your ego and sense of identity. It would feel… awkward. You’d feel guilty.
You might try to find a reason NOT to comply with that request, but if you’re unable to, then you most likely will, even if it’s only for $5. Giving money feels better than the guilt you’d feel if you didn’t.
Yes – this is a tad bit manipulative, but it can be used in less invasive ways to encourage potential donors to become advocates.
Along with this idea of consistency, there is also the feeling of obligation that can cause you to give money to charity. That feeling might come out of your sense of identity, previously stated beliefs, or because a charity has helped you or someone you know in some way.
For example, if someone came up to you (like the hare krishna group) and gave you a flower. You’d smile and thank them. Then, if they asked for a $5 donation, you’d likely comply. You wouldn’t want to, but you’d feel guilty and awkward about it.
You might try to give the flower back, but if they wouldn’t accept it, you’d still feel negative. The only way to stop feeling negative would be to donate money or stomp away and try to forget the encounter.
Now, I also believe this is a tad bit manipulative, but gifts and free value can be used to engender trust and warm people up to giving to your nonprofit.
7. Significance and Meaning
Finally, the core reason that someone will give money or donate to a nonprofit is because they want to feel significant and that their life has meaning.
By donating to a cause, that person is having a real change in the world. Their life has purpose. They are making other people’s lives better. They also feel significant when you thank them profusely for the donation.
In order to make someone feel this way, you must take specific actions like:
- Show them tangibly how their donation will impact others
- Thank them and be grateful, to allow them to feel significant
- Treat them as special members of your community
We all create to feel significant and that our life has meaning. As a nonprofit, you have the opportunity to make your donors feel this way!
I’ve put together a new GUIDE that’s packed with science-backed nonprofit fundraising methods, resources, strategies, and killer marketing methods.
You should check it out if you want to get more donations and you want to fast-track the entire process.
For more psychological fundraising hacks, check out my upcoming book going through all the Nonprofit Psychological Fundraising Hacks.
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