I hate magicians. Well, it’s not that I hate them, but I find watching magic shows totally frustrating. It’s all great, the illusion happens and the audience claps...and whilst the magician is onto the next amazing trick, I find my brain unable to move on. How on earth did he do that?
I’ve always had a thing about knowing the ‘how’. Ever since I got caught copying at school. It was the dreaded Monday morning maths test and I sat opposite a girl called Melanie who was an ace at numbers. I quickly discovered I could read upside down and for a while those tests were a doddle...until the week Melanie was off school. Because I hadn’t learnt HOW to work through the questions, the answers were so far out of reach they may as well have been in a different classroom!
As as an 8 year old with a sudden dip in maths results I learnt something very valuable that I’ve never forgotten – there is no point knowing the ‘answer’ if you don’t know how you got there.
But what’s all this got to do with fundraising?
We’re a fabulous sector. Filled with lovely people who like to share success and help others replicate it. It’s great, because in the main, fundraisers are really nice people and we all have one thing in common – we want to change the world.
But we’re also really, really busy people, and when you mix lovely with busy and add in a few risk averse board members, we can quite often end up needing a ‘quick fix’, a ‘win’ or ‘something that’s ‘worked for someone else’.
That’s fine every once in a while. We absolutely should be sharing concepts that work, but there is a danger that if we all pile in and do the same thing, donors will be inundated with identical ‘surprises and delights’ and we could well be missing a wonderful opportunity to be providing really meaningful donor experiences.
It’s all about YOUR Donor’s Experience...
Every charity is different, and our supporters are different too, they want different things. So copying things that work for one charity, and treating your donors in the same way, might not be delivering the experience that best suits them.
So how do we start to think differently about the experience we are providing?
As fundraisers, we might not be our target market, but we do share some similarities with every single charity supporter. We all have one thing in common. We are all humans. And like it or not, however different we are as people, as humans our brains operate in much the same way.
The commercial world is way ahead of us on this. They’ve been using cognitive neuroscience for years to advertise products and develop customer experiences. We can learn a lot from how they do things.
But hang on! Before we just copy what the commercial world is doing, we should learn a bit more about ‘how' the human brain works and how it processes experiences to understand the experience we should look to deliver.
Because it’s by combining an understanding of how and why experiences affect attitude and behaviour with an expert understanding of our cause and the people who support us, that will enable us to build better, more authentic and unique journeys for our supporters.
In the long run, this is what will drive commitment and build better relationships and ultimately result in better retention.
Intrigued? I’m really excited to be bringing my session on the science of donor experience to AFP Toronto this year. I’ll be sharing a whistle stop tour of some basic brain science (don’t worry, it’s not rocket science!) and giving some food for thought to inspire you to look at your donor journeys from a different angle. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Rachel Hunnybun has been a senior individual giving fundraiser for a number of charities in the UK and specialises in supporter experience and developing long term insight driven income growth. She is passionate about providing donors with the right inspiration and experience to develop long term relationships and often looks to other sectors and industries to bring new ideas and learning to her fundraising work. Rachel is a regular speaker at Institute of Fundraising Conventions at both regional and national level in the UK as well as conferences in Europe including the International Fundraising Congress in Holland and is looking forward to speaking at AFP Toronto in November 2016. You can tweet with her at @rachel_hunny
