Why are we (mostly) asking men?
It is totally possible that in a past life, I was a psychologist or perhaps a sociologist. I love learning about behavior.
I mostly love learning about it because I’m frequently surprised at how my “instincts” differ from what the data proves.
Case in point: donors lie all.the.time.
Need an example?
A donor tells you something like, “Oh, I don’t need a thank you - don’t worry about me.” Yet the data shows us that when thanked promptly, donors retain at higher levels (56%) and downstream revenue increases (72%). Sounds like an easy case for setting up a gratitude program.
But back to the question at hand: why are we (mostly) asking men for donations?
In my personal experience as a front-line fundraiser, most of the asks I’ve made have been to men. Older, white, men. But why?
Last year I was introduced to the book, Why She Buys by Bridget Brennan where she argues the case that we all should be paying more attention to WOMEN. It is women compared to me that make up to 70-80% of ALL purchasing decisions.
I know!
That means that for every house purchased, car bought and yes - you could argue donation made - there is a woman behind that decision making process.
The challenge is that men run most for-profit and nonprofit organizations and thus are the decision makers when it comes to marketing to audiences. So, it makes sense that we market to those that are most familiar to us.
But what if we did it differently? Here are are some ways you can strategically work to get in front of or grow a female donors base:
Get vulnerable: Women like to feel helpful. Therefore, if you come in always boasting about how wonderful you are and never truly expressing the need your nonprofit has - how is the female donor going to feel helpful? A recent example I have of this is when my friend, Susan Ramirez, CEO of National Angels told her donor base she was scared. For years, they had relied on a big fancy gala to net them $250K and then - COVID hit. What were they going to do? Her organization was seeing a 2000% increase in need and now they couldn’t host their largest fundraiser. So, she got vulnerable. She said exactly that. Her team put together their first ever online fundraising campaign and they raised over $300k in just a few weeks! That’s more than their gala ever produced for them.
Tell stories: Biologically, women have a larger hippocampus than men. This is where we store emotion and memories. Therefore, more than facts and figures, women connect through storytelling. My advice, go Humans of New York style - nothing fancy and just tell as many stories as possible about the people you serve, your staff, your volunteers, your origin story - tell it all. And tell them often.
It’s all in the details: Different from men - women remember the details. And we have a gift for sharing about them. So pay attention to the details because she will. That means from how easy you make donating online (how many hoops are you making her jump through?), to how you thank her following a gift (is it prompt and genuine?) to getting her name spelled correctly on an envelope - she is paying attention.
And above all - we need to start asking. You’d be surprised - women as the primary breadwinners of their families are growing across households. In fact, women just topped $2B in donation this last election cycle. So just ask. She will want you to.