Search This Blog

Monday, June 20, 2011

Choices - Do Donors Want Them?

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently featured an article by Thomas Barlett, partially entitled..."Save Us From Our Own Decisions."  He summarized a recent presentation by Dan Ariely, Eldar Shafir, and Sheena Iyengar (Ariely and Iyengar are featured on End|Start's resources link).  Two obvious take-aways for nonprofits are:  too many choices can overwhelm, deter, distract, a donor; people respond better to more concrete choices -- save one particular life than "end poverty for one million people."

Many organizations give donors a menu of possibilities -- sometimes under the guise of donor choice, sometimes because the internal politics of choosing one program over others is too overwhelming, sometimes because the organization is so large and complex.

But choice is, I believe, the future.  Giving will, in fact, be more and more directed.  With increasingly sophisticated consumers who are used to having more and more choice in how they spend their dollars, the change is coming.  Get with it, get ahead of it, or get caught in it by not being ready, open, and creative. 

Choice is key to engagement; engagement is key to support. 

No comments:

Post a Comment