0:00 All right. Welcome folks excited for today's presentation. This is Tim sir Antonio, Director corporate brand at NEON one. I'm excited for today's presentation with the folks from the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy, we're going to do some formal introductions very shortly after some housekeeping, we had a lot of people interested in this. And it's a Tuesday, in June. So I want to give people a little bit of time to get acclimated. As we are having folks come into the room, I'd love for us to test out a few things. So there's going to be a few ways that you can actually interact with today's presentation. The first one is the Q and A. So we are recording today's presentation. So is the most popular question that we actually get. Is this being recorded? Yes, we are recording, we will be placing this on the neon one website at NEON one.com under our events and webinars section. And then you'll be able to probably access that later today. The email with the slides and all of the good stuff will definitely be going out by tomorrow at the absolute latest. That'll include include the transcript and what you're going to see from the fine folks at the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy. If you want to ask a question of our experts today, and boy, are they experts. This is an absolute treat for folks over here. Use the Q and A the question and answer panel because it ensures that we can see it. But there is another way that you can talk and engage and throw some some comments out. And that is the chat. So we're going to test the chat now. And so awesome. We got Cody from Capitol roots, my local nonprofit that I donate to, that I actually wrote about for these philanthropic psychology certificate course that you're going to hear about today. So we're going to test the chat out. And so this is because Harriet and Catherine are speaking to us from the United Kingdom. Okay, they are hours away. So I want to hear where you folks are talking from. Because we're over here in the US and I'm in upstate New York. So type into the chat, who you are and where you are speaking from we got Colorado we got Northern Carolina, we California we got Duluth, Minnesota, Vero Beach, Florida, we got Cabot theater coming from Boston, where I spent my birthday. We got more calot we got Illinois, Albany, New York. Well, we got a lot of folks, we got a lot of folks, buffalo, Oregon, Salem, Salem, Oregon, Bronx, where I was born. Love it, Wisconsin. Love it, Toronto. So this is truly an international presentation today. So I don't want to belabor things. Again, few housekeeping items we're recording, you're going to get the slides, you're going to get the transcript. And you're going to get an amazing education from Katherine and Harriet, who are going to introduce themselves. We're going to follow questions. Otherwise, folks, I'm going to turn my camera off be here for any support. We also have Abby and our team watching things. The floor is yours. So very happy to welcome you to the neon one webinar today. 3:46 Awesome, hopefully you can all hear me. Okay. So welcome to this talk on philanthropic psychology and a big hello from Plymouth, Devon, which is where I am. So that's where the Mayflower left. I saw in the chat. I didn't see anybody from Las Vegas, though. I'm going there in a few weeks. So if anybody's in Las Vegas, please say hello. And let me know what the weather is like. So my name is Harriet de that's me on the right hand side that you can see on the screen. And I'm a bit of a rare breed. I'm a lecturer of fundraising at the institute. And I'm here with my colleague, Dr. Katherine Carpenter, which is literally left. And you will have the pleasure of hearing from her in the kind of second portion of this presentation. So I'll leave her to kind of introduce herself then. So as Tim said, throughout this talk, if you have any questions, type them into the chat box, we'll monitor them and hopefully get to as many as we can at the very end. And then like I said, Katherine is going to take you through kind of the research and action and show you some real life charity results. You can take away some practical advice, but how to not only boost your donors wellbeing, but you're giving in the process. So if all of that sounds good, I'll start by introducing the institute's baby, which is what we call philanthropic psychology or feel psych for short. It's just easier So first like, so I will probably say that the rest of the presentation. And I should say that you probably will encounter some kind of new concepts and things that you might have not come across before when I'm talking about foresight, which is absolutely fine if you're new to the field of psychology, but they're not, we're going to go through plenty of examples. So we're going to be lighter on text, and kind of heavier on real life examples, you can really get attuned to it and kind of ease your way into Phil's like, having said that, this first slide that I'm going to go through is the most text heavy. So this isn't representative of the rest of the presentation, don't worry. But I wanted to start by defining what philanthropic psychology is, because you might have never come across it before or maybe kind of heard it in passing, but you have no idea what it means. So, at a very basic level, the word philanthropy has a Greek root, which I am sure many of you will know about being in a sector. And that word means the love of mankind. But fear not that dreaded L word love because it's not love in the romantic sense that we mean here. It could be love for strangers, it could be love, we have other groups love we have for a country love we have for an ethos or an idea, or a cause, etc. So it's the love of human concept, philanthropy is the theory. And then similarly, the word psychology has a Greek root as well as to those words, to be honest, which means the study and research of the soul or the psyche. So today, especially in cell site, what we do, we focus our study on the sense of who we are, and how giving allows us to express our sense of self. And there are many reasons why we choose this focus to base our study on at the institute. And that's because we believe, if we can't understand our donors as people, then we can't develop the most meaningful relationship with them. And we can't support them then in developing a sustainable giving journey, because that's ultimately what we want to do. So the branch of psychology that we explore in Institute is really about how people experience their sense of who they are. So if you meld those two worlds together, you get philanthropic psychology, which translates to the study of how people love humankind. Now, that can improve not just how we love others, but also how we love ourselves. So when we're thinking about loving ourselves and the fundraising space, what do we mean by that? Well, this can be how we love our staff, how we love our board, how we love our supporters, or it can be how we love the people that we help if we start to think of them as being one with us. So by simply defining, who are the people doing the loving, and who are the people receiving the love, we can open up a whole new world of how we think about our fundraising communications, because suddenly, anything seems possible. And finally, when we think about love, it's not enough to think of love as the type of love of the MTR settle for somebody else, because that's just not sustainable. And being the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy, that's kind of not a bad. So this this sustainable kind of love is where as we are loving other people, we are loving ourselves at the same time. So when we give love out, we experience love within, when we start to give money away, you don't actually feel like we're giving something away from ourselves, we're simply giving money to another part of us. So we feel like we're getting something back in return. I don't think I can live with anything that's more sustainable, then no longer feeling like you're kind of giving something away from yourself. But just redistributing that money from one part of your sense of self to another. And a huge goal of Institute is that through every donation a person gives, they feel more loved, and then more loving. At the same time. When that happens, you know, we can retire, we can shut the doors, we don't need to exist anymore, because that's really at the very core of what we do. We try to understand who the person is, who the donor is, who was doing the loving, and what love links. So I appreciate that a lot already. So let's look through some examples now of what that love can mean in a fundraising context, and kind of see Phil's site in action. 9:36 So he has the following is an example from USAID for UNHCR who've done a lot of work with over the past few years, they've kind of they've sent numerous people on our certificate and so on. So before they were introduced to feel like the tone of their communications was really squarely on the problem and focusing on money as the solution. So a simple problem solution and call to action on that. Much like, and that's absolutely fine. So commonly used formula that many organizations in the sector will use. But you've been weren't satisfied and felt like something was kind of missing in their fundraising. But they didn't know what they just knew that they didn't want to focus on. People were hungry on their website. But again, they didn't know what they were missing, they couldn't quite put their finger on it. So after research that we did with them, they realized that when people were looking at their homepage, from donors looking at their homepage, they could say, Yes, we can see a problem. Yes, you know, they can see what we should do, we should donate, but they don't see themselves anywhere on the page. So you've been you asked the simple question, how can we possibly say simple? How can we possibly fit the donors into the short description, to really show them how the helping, so after feels like, as you can see from the example, on your screen, that tone and focus really shifted, so your kindness helps protect Ethiopian refugees. So here, you can already see that we're allowing the reader to love themselves, through loving other people, the people being those Ethiopian refugees, it's not your money that protects them to kindness. And as you all know, kindness is not something that you know, you do, it's used to describe the art. It's a descriptive word, and it speaks to the person's moral identity, but are part of that thought about identity and moral identity, because we'll circle back to that in a few slides. But for now, what I wanted you to really notice in this slide, is the emphasis in the symbol heading it squarely on how to read is kindness can protect families and children. And it's a subtle, but hugely powerful difference. I mean, if this were to read, your donation can help protect families and children, then I could think, well, the only way I can help as a person is if I give money, which for some can be a bit disempowering. What if I can't do today, what if I can't give very much or I can't give as much as I would like to what does that mean for the beneficiary. But instead of money, the focus is on the conference, because that I have an endless amount of as a donor, much more empowering, and the person can actually feel empowered, before they've taken any action for usap UNHCR, so they might not decide to take on that button and donate. But that doesn't mean that they can't leave you for us homepage, feeling really good. given money and feeling good about being a good person doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. And Catherine apt in her portion of the presentation is going to walk you through some of the monetary difference that these changes actually made to new foods. Bottom line, and the sums are pretty staggering. 13:05 Another example, so this is the leprosy mission, Australia, and again, you can see it right in front of you, your kindness will create a world without leprosy, the difference your kindness makes cannot be measured on money alone. So here, the donors are the ones that are creating the world without leprosy, but not through their gifts. It's their kindness. So the leprosy mission, Australia here are bringing in the donors sense of self into the dialogue. And as you can see, this is a legacy piece. So what that means is that their own kindness is the legacy that we'll be living on after them, not just them, money. So what leprosy mission has done really masterfully here is you can see where their focus and attention it's not just on the money, but on the donors as people. So they're not kind of looking down at the cash. They're looking up and looking at the donors in the eyes. And so when you see your countenance, I think that's the difference that feels like offers. So now when you're kind of thinking about any of your communications, start to think about your through this new first like lens, whether that's your website, a donation page, request, page, piece of communication, whatever it might be. And I'd encourage you to start thinking through that lens where you say to yourself, Okay, when we read this copy, where is the donor? How are we connecting with them? Who are we connecting them to? How are we building that connection? And how are we making people feel really warm and good about themselves after they read what's in front of them? Now, you don't have to write those down because we've almost got them as a bit of a checklist, which is why I really wanted to have them here. So every time Before you write any property, or if you're analyzing old copy, try to have these questions in mind. So it's not just about telling a story now, it's about thinking of the person you're talking to seeing who they are as people seeing their identity, and talking to what they care about. And what's the goal of doing all this while it's to make them feel better, to make them feel more connected, make them feel warm, about where they are, and who they are. So when they do make that gift to you, and trust me, once you start speaking to them in this warm and heartfelt way, they absolutely will give to you. And I'll be giving from a place where they feel loved, not just for their money, not for their gift, but love for their sense of self. 15:47 I should say that I don't think there's necessarily an absolute formula as to which simple work changes are 100% work for you and your organization. The reason why leprosy mission, and you for you knew what words to use is because they did a survey and so that people told them exactly what words they should be using. But if you take anything from this, you can start by saying things like your kindness, your generosity, your caring heart, that in and of itself is a really solid place to start. Because those are all moral identity words, which again, I'll quickly come back to in another slide. But what I wanted to kind of emphasize and saying this is that you need to have your donors in your mind's eye. So whatever your change in tone in your communication, whatever words you decide to swap out needs to be with your donors identity and who they are as people in that context. So kind of applying filters. Like, I like to think of it as more of a mindset shift than anything. So if through your letters, you're thanking your donors for being a good person thanking them for their heart, you can feel that they are genuinely experiencing the love and appreciation that you have for them, then whatever words you use, will land, right, because they can feel your passion and appreciation. But if I were to say, like leprosy mission, your kindness will create a world without leprosy at the bottom of the letter, where you first say, Thank you for your gift of $10 original gift. Here's your disclaimer. And here's a whole load of verbiage that we're not really going to listen to, nobody's going to read it, that's not going to feel authentic, and it's not going to land in the same way. Because your people want you deep appreciation. So we're showing what I've shown you two examples already, we'll go through some more. But the big takeaway so far, is that the organizations that are using these words, and are applying foresight in a really good way to see those amazing results are constantly asking themselves these kinds of questions that you see on the screen, in everything that they do and every interaction that they have with their people. So even the organizations who have been applying for Psych for years, still now revisit these questions just to make sure that they're on the right track. So the easiest test that you can do after this talk, is when you get a piece of copy, and you have somebody else read it, that could be somebody on your team or colleague in another team, whoever, then when they're done, ask them, Can you feel the heart in this? Can you feel that I'm trying to connect with you, obviously, your colleagues or whoever reads it might not be your target audience, but it's going to at least be a base level gauge for you to see if the heart is really coming through in that piece? And if it's not, then you can adjust? Because if you will, the persons reading can't feel the heart connections in that copy? And how can you expect your donors to feel that part? So start from there, remember these questions and go back to them after this if you can, with one of your copies in mind. Next example. So here is a warm Thanksgiving appeal example that one of our full cycle alumni did and was more than happy for us to share. So thank you very much. So in the before copy, which is on the left hand side, you can see the wording is please rush back on the enclosed Thanksgiving vouchers to help a neighbor in our community today. The after example, which was after Phyllis like on the right reads, your compassion can give blessings to your neighbor. So here, are we focusing on the money? Or are we focusing on the person? Obviously, the focus is squarely on the person and bringing to the forefront that more word compassion, that's all that it really took to elevate this piece it so it's not highlighting the readers mind. Oh, I have to send back this boundary in order to do good and help. It's I can help with my compassion, because that's who I am. I'm compassionate person who wants to bless and help my community. So the shift is different. And I hope that you can see that. 20:10 So here actually is the voucher itself. And it was included in the mailing with the idea that the donor sent this voucher back. And the one on the left was the old one, and they sent the same batch out year after year. And it reads, please use my 2020 Thanksgiving gift to help someone like Nori, or others who are struggling. So when you first read this, you'd be forgiven for thinking, well, I've got a specific person here, I've got a named perhaps that person, if I close my eyes, I can picture maybe Laurie is and what they would look like, and I'm sending my gift to that person. Surely, that has to outperform the ASTER Phil site, where the name is taken away? Can you guess? It did? The after version, which is the one you see on the right hand side doubled is organizations donations from the previous year. So volunteers are America versus the left and the right that after doubled the organization's donation for that year. So the after example, reads, please give my Thanksgiving blessings to help my neighbor? Why did this outperform because the whole pack and the message and obviously, this outro is about thanking people and appreciating them for who they are thanking them for their compassion, thanking them for how they're feeling, building connections, making people feel warm, making them feel like they are part of something that matters. And when you do this, it's very, very important that you don't only set up a problem for people to solve, we don't only give people the solution that they can offer. You help them see what the end goal of winning really looks like to help people feel what winning looks like. And ideally, what you want to do is to make their heart burst. So they think, man, I can give, I can offer compassion, I can give them my heart because that is me. And that makes me feel heartened and full and good. When donors feel that way, that is when you're going to see your fundraising soar. And I think that's what makes this approach and donor Centricity a bit different. Because it's not when you're thinking in your logical brain, okay, I want my donor to feel EPS, and then they must feel why and they must go search when they read this and treating it in a really formulaic, formulaic, brain led way. The fill site way, is all about how we can make people feel that genuine heart heart connection with someone else, and not just making them feel connected to somebody else who's separate from them. But how can you turn analyze that feeling? And let them know what it's like to connect with that only women? That's powerful. So I wanted to show you another example of how Phil psych shows us how we can build those connections. So this is from CLIC Sargent. And what they really did here is they ask themselves, where can we squeeze in some more love and opportunities to build those connections? Because what they really wanted to impart they, it's young lives versus cancer. So it's young adults and individuals who are battling this horrible disease. And what they said was that, despite everything, these people, these children keep fighting. And they win when they keep fighting. So instead of having this blank space there, what they did is they said, Well, that sounds something cancer can never take your amazing love away from young lives. That's what they decided to add into start to build those Heart to Heart connections. So when you're thinking about building connections between your amazing donors, who love the people that they care about the the thing that they care about, not just about facts, it's not just about, you know exactly that they're fighting against cancer. It's about portraying the fight that the donor can win. It's about winning the fight that matters to their sense of who they are. And here, what they're saying is that no matter what the horrible disease or cancer throws at these kids, that love can never be broken. Because that's something that will always win no matter what. 24:40 So we promise you many examples, and here is another one, a lovely animal charity. So this is RSPCA Queensland in Australia. And what we found through analyzing their database is that as much as we would like to think that things animal loving donors connect with the suffering of the animal and that makes me really sad. And the cruelty of the humans that perpetrate these horrible abuses against innocent animals. And that's what makes people feel really, really angry. What we found through analysis and actually connect with donors connect with the pain that these animals experience, they feel that deep ache for the animals, and that's why they're sad. That's why they're angry. So the sadness and the anger, they're not the focus of the primary emotions. They're secondary. And they're not the connecting emotions either. That these donors experience is the pain and the body aching, which is the connection that they can see. So how do RSPCA and how can charities news that kind of knowledge? What doesn't mean that they can't show the suffering of animals and portrayed anger towards these animal abusers. But what it does do is it provided RRSP to Queensland with a slight angle to tap into the suffering and to tap into that anger, but through a channel or a door that can open up that pathway of connection format donors. And so as you can see on the screen, this is RSPCA Queensland website, it's their Christmas appeal. And this is how their database experience lover section. So if you soak into the copy that you've got there, and the image of the dog, what do you feel you feel hope for future for the future for dogs like wax, you can seal their tail wagging. I don't know about you. But looking at that picture, I can almost like hear his breath. If you're a dog owner, you can probably imagine how bad that breath would smell because it can be pretty ripe sometimes. But the lasting impression of this copy after applying feels like it's totally totally different to what they were showing before. So before they showed photos of Wags with most red skin, your list of scabs all over. It's an isolated little body with titles like this is the face of a puppy that is in pain all over that. 27:13 Yes, it showed the suffering. Yes, it showed the need. But yes, it was also bringing the donor down into such awful emotional depths for which they were provided no emotional way out either. And then you cut to this tone of RSPCA Queensland now with copy that reads, oh, the joy of the soft coat are wagging tail of scampering and not caring. And here, you can bring joy and love to animals this Christmas. So again, just to emphasize, we're not saying you can't use images and graphics and stories, authentic stories that help to put things into context and show the need, we absolutely realize that as much as we would like it to not all communications can be solutions and happy rainbows. At the same time, think about what verbs we want to use to portray that and accompany that kind of image. And think about where we can inject like little gems of joy, that really allow your donors to feel that they can be the ones to stop that suffering. Because wherever we can add that little spark in, we should, and allowing them to soak in and feel good about all the goodness that they can create. So if you're unsure about the verbs to use, and obviously I would say come to us for seven. But if you don't want to do that right now, that is absolutely okay. What you can do right now after this is to start to pepper those lovely, delicious, beautiful mole words and good volumes into your columns. So you start to speak more technical people are and what good things they can achieve with you because they have such a big heart. And that shift and turn alone will help you infuse more foresight into your fundraising. So those examples that I gave you, they are all good examples. I feel like application. But what do we mean, when we say that was good? What does that mean in the film sock world. So when we repeatedly and consistently love or supporters based on our best understanding of who they are, then ideally our copy will increase their sense of feeling competent, autonomous and connected through their giving the what on earth does that mean? Well, that means that people feel more confident, competent, sorry that they can make a difference. And for people to feel competent, they really need to feel like they can make a difference. It's a bit more nuanced. They need to feel who I am, who they are, can make a difference. So feeling competent in how they can give love and joy to the ones that they care about. Feel that they can connect and pain they can cuddle in the face of fear and cruelty. They can do all of those things. So So I'd ask you, in your copy, are you thanking people for their current gift? Or are you thanking people for their kind nips, because the latter is worth full sight. And it's not just about that it's about autonomy. So that's choosing to give the gift in the first postage choosing to sacrifice, their kindness gives them a voice, and their voice matters. They choose to do something amazing with their philanthropy, not because we tell them, but because they feel like they have to be guilted into doing it, they're not angered into doing it, they're doing it because they choose to sacrifice in love. 30:39 And then finally, the third dimension is connected. So from the first line of your communication, it's about feeling connected, or bonded to another group, the person or whoever you love objectives, whether that's nature of the environment, and so on. And going even further than that, it's not just about feeling more connected to the beneficiary level they are, it's about feeling more connected on a personal level, actually, whether that's to our friends, or family, and even ourselves, to feeling more connected to who we all because we are able to express our own identity through our giving. And our identity is being mirrored and reflected back to us by the organizations we choose to help and the causes we love. And you might be thinking, But Harriet, we don't have us to invest or uploader sites like these organizations. What I'd sent you is we actually had somebody fairly recently in our certificate in cell site, which is an eight week kind of online learning experience, who in the space of about two to three weeks was able to just totally transform their language and the way that they approached copy. It was astonishing. And you know, two, three weeks that is something that all of you listening now can achieve in a relatively short space of time, if you allow your heart to take over from your head, and to ask those checklist questions that we had earlier, as well as to always be mindful of and asking yourself, How can we try to boost our people along these three dimensions of psychological well being of competence, autonomy, and connectedness. So when we think about philanthropic psychology and context of giving money, we've talked very briefly about people's identity, and their sense of who they are. So being a blessed together kind person and animal lover. And I'll synthesize in a couple of slides, the six of the many identities that could be applied for your donor. So it's not just those there are 6 million others, that kind of could be a play for your donor database. And in loving themselves, and loving others, they can experience those positive feelings like competence, autonomy, and connectedness. And those positive feelings not only benefit other people, the beneficiaries, but benefit them themselves. So they can take on cancer, they can take on the heartbreak, they can take the animal neglect, they can take on shattered lives, but guess what? Their kindness and their love makes a difference. And this is not just an expression of their sense of self, that's an expression of the person loving themselves, as well as loving others. So when those animals like wives hurt, I hurt. But when I give money to end up hurting, and when I love animals, that is personally meaningful to me. So when that one sentence that encapsulates both the both the loving of the self, and the loving of others, using positive feelings and language to overcome that negative. And what I think one of the best things that fundraising has to offer is that it doesn't just have to be about the giving of money that can make people feel this way can be that asking for money as well. asking for donations can be a doorway to people expressing their own identities, or a commitment to serve the people or the thing that they love the most. So their expression of their sense of self of who they are the identities that our communications allow fundraisers to communicate, and create for the supporters when they give. So I mentioned that there were six other possible identities. And I will do a bit of a whistlestop tour to show you through those because they're really very important. 34:29 So very simply, when you think now about your people, you should be thinking about a different identities and which of those we're speaking to when we interact with them. So are we speaking to their personal identity, that's just the identity that they own. So I'm smart, I'm tall, I have brown hair, whatever it might be. A relational identity. That's the identity that connects them with people that are close. So I'm a son or daughter, a mother a father is a group identity. This can be You know, being part of a particular community. So I play music in a community group. Is it an organizational identity, I am a donor to Save the Children, I am a donor to RSP secularism, I am a donor to insert your organization, or the final one, is it a wider regional, more geographic identity that's at play. So I'm Australian, I'm American, I'm British, whatever it might be. Now, to finish off with this slide, there are some moral identity words that you're seeing the bottom left hand screen, and those moral identity traits are always those top three words are kind, caring, and compassionate. And we know that they are always at play, because no matter how many people you seem to survey, and we've probably surveyed over a million now over various tests, it is these more words never, ever fail and showing up. So you don't have to test that the Institute, well, we'll give you that for free. Moral identity is 100% going to be an important identity for your donors. So if you want to reinforce how good they feel you want to talk about and be kind, caring, and compassionate. And go ahead and do it as much as you can. Because we know that it's going to speak to your people and make them 36:13 feel good. 36:17 So to kind of summarize, when we talk about psychological well being, we're talking about combining and appealing to people's sense of identity and our asks, and allowing them to express themselves with the ultimate goal that they'll feel good along those three dimensions that we've just been through. So that's competence, autonomy, and connectedness, which combined, make psychological well being. So we've done a very whistlestop tour of what feels like means I've shown you just a glimpse through how you can apply this kind of love and double giving and boost your donors psychological well being through the fall. So examples that I went through. And I should finish by saying that this kind of doubling that we've seen by applying full psych doesn't drain your database, if anything, quite the opposite, it charges and it invigorates them. So we're talking about applying SoulCycle in a way that truly creates that sustainable philanthropy that we want every nonprofit on planet Earth to achieve. So I think you've probably heard enough from me, but what I want to do now is pass it on over to my esteemed colleague and friend, Catherine, because she's going to go through some wonderful examples, and just showing you how you can use identity and love in the right way in your copy to double given. So on to you, Catherine. Thank you so much, Harriet. 37:51 Alright, can you just check with me that I'm showing the correct screen here? Brilliant. Yeah, thank you so much, Harriet. As Harriet says, I'm Catherine carpenter. I'm the director of research at the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy. So very, very excited to be speaking to you today or this evening in our UK time about some research into the nonprofit psychology. And just looking more at the kind of behavioral and wellbeing outcomes that we we have seen when we have experimented with using these principles with nonprofit partners. So for the remainder of this webinar, what I'm going to do is take the learnings and advice that Harriet has given to you in the previous slides, and I'm going to show you some examples of some of the research we've completed with nonprofit research partners. And the kinds of outcomes that they have seen from the analyses. So when we are doing research with our nonprofit partners, we have three aims in mind, we want to build the retention in the donor base. So it's not just about boosting that giving one time we want the sustainability. You know, second gift year on year, we want to be, you know, improving the sustainability of these databases. We want to grow giving an other donation behavior that people are interested in, as well as non monetary kind of advocacy as well. A lot of nonprofits are obviously very interested in that. And just as importantly, we want to make sure that we are making people feel better about themselves helping them connect more and more meaningfully with the beneficiaries and other people that they want to connect with as well. So with this research, we're kind of moving beyond traditional measures of donor loyalty. So commitment, satisfaction, trust has been using us in the sector for about two decades now. We want to be kind of moving beyond things and we want to start thinking about people love and well being so I I'm with people. This is what Harriet was talking about, how are we expressing someone's sense of who they are? What is the donor identity? With lovely thinking about who we're connecting with? are we connecting the donor with the beneficiary? Are they more connected with the volunteers and connecting with members of staff? are they connecting with the organization themselves? And how is this playing out in communications, and in subsequent donation behavior. And finally, as always, we're thinking about psychological well being of the donors, so thinking about connectedness with others, autonomy competence are things that Harriet said, make up good psychological well being. So the first kind of data set that I'm going to be walking through today comes from a US conservative think tank organization. So they sent out a donor survey that focused on learning the donor identities within the supporter base. And it's focused on two separate potential identities. So support identity, which is kind of our organizational identity that Harriet was speaking about, that's on the right hand side there. So basically, describe your identity as a member of this organization. How would you describe yourself as a supporter of this conservatism? On the other hand, some people were just asked about their personal identity, who they are, as a person in their everyday life, how would they how would they describe those words, and when we do this with organizations, you find that the support and the self identity either really merge together, the kind of top five top 10 words that people are using, are really pretty much the same. Meaning that you can kind of talk to either or sometimes, as was in this organization, the self identity looks quite different from the organizational identity. So here, the self identity, important what was most important word was conservative. But then after that, it was honest, loyal Christian, carrying a lot of words that were associated with that moral identity that how it was about. However, the supporter identity, which is built up by the organization, in how you communicate with your donors, what kind of messaging they're getting back to me about who they are as a member of your organization, in, they felt patriotic, committed, informed concern. So both great identities that you could use, but very contrasting. So the first question we asked is, Well, which one? Which one do we use comes both one or the other? And what is the impact of these identities, compared to communications that don't happen? 42:49 So what we did was a communication experiment, we have three versions of a membership renewal direct mail pack. In the control condition, it was kind of pretty much the same as the year before that using kind of different, different different stories that it was it was asking for renewed membership. So this is the donation response form that people received to work contributed to the control condition. Compared to the control condition, we had two other versions of the letter, the first version called the self condition. This had kind of additional sentences that boosted donor identity. So it's just telling people that, you know, thank you for being a passionate supporter of this, of this organization. And with the self condition, what we did is peppered through words that our analysis on the most frequent question, were important predictors of giving, and distinct words from the support itself. So here, it was faithful, trusting, hardworking, compassionate, these were the words that were important to join us at this organization for their self identity. And then the final condition of this experiment was the support condition, the letter of the donation from exactly the same, except we changed some of the words that were peppered through from the self words to words that we found in our analysis, important to the supporter identity. So proud, patriotic, hopeful, these kinds of lights, we're coming up with the support identity. And we find that having this kind of identity language this this boosting of identity way of speaking in this communication had a big impact on the response rate to the communication. So, compared to the control, the response rate was 14% higher when using the supporter words and 20% higher when using the self words. When you turn that into a monetary difference, what you find if you Were in the control condition, if they had actually received the sell condition, that could have boosted income by nearly 50,000. And if they had received the support munition, that could have boosted income by $35,000, based on increased response rate. So there's a huge benefit of thinking about and finding out more about who your donors are, and then kind of working that in to your communications. And what was interesting, you say, Well, do I use the self or the support, then it looks like they should be using the self identity words, because these are the words that are coming out more. If you did another analysis on this, and you take into account length of doing the journey, and how much people have given to you in the past, what we find is that the self words are much better than people who are just at the start of their daily journey. As people start giving more to the organization, the supporter works, work better and have a higher response rate compared to the control. And we think that is because they've just had time to internalize all of the communications that the organization has been sending to them, and kind of strengthen the importance of that supporter identity within themselves. Now, the next organization I'm going to speak to you about is an organization where we found focusing on identity, focusing on connecting people with who they want to connect to, can double the given that you receive, not only once, but kind of overtime, without kind of draining your donor base. So the the organization was a UK Christian international aid organization. 46:48 And a donor survey found that there were three big potential predictors of donor behavior. And these weren't Christian identity, like being Christian was important to the person, it was important that they were kind of living up their Christian values by helping the beneficiaries, whether they were committed to the mission, kind of passionate about the mission of the organization. And finally, whether they felt connected to the staff of the organization, and also to God as well. So we found that these were the, in the survey suggested to be potential big predictors of giving. So what we did was we designed a communication test, the letter in all of these communication tests between conditions is always the same. It's only a couple of sentences in a donation response forms that change. So you can see here on this donation responsible, you've got two sentences here, we've kind of ticked boxes next to them, we call these booster sentences. The top one here, giving is a vital part of what being a Christian who helps this organization means. This was designed to boost Christian identity. And yes, I care passionately about the work of this organization. This was designed to boost commitment to the mission and to the to the work of the organization. So this was a condition that had to have these booster sentences in, we also sent out a version that only had the question identity sentence, we sent out a version that only had the commitment sentence. And then we sent out a version that was the control condition that compared everything to that was exactly the same that is exactly the same inserts, envelope everything completely the same, except it didn't include to include one of those two sentences. And we found that this this first test communication, that compared to the control donation response rate was 56% higher when using the Christian identity sentence 31% higher when using the commitment. And when using both together, donation response rate was 30%. higher compared to the control, all of these were statistically significant increases in response rate to the donation. And also, the average gift among all of the conditions didn't change. So while we've increased response rate, we haven't lowered the amount that people are tending to get fiber. We thought That's brilliant, shall we see if we can do it again. So a couple of months later, exactly the same premise we had before conditions, and this time we had use a sentence that boosted connectedness to God. And then the second one, again, was Christian identity, because that's such a brilliant predictor previously. And once again, in comparison to the control condition, all of the conditions significantly increased donation response rate, I'm just with the inclusion of these one or two sentences in the donation responsible. So donation response rate 53 to 60%, higher when only using one of the sentences, and this is where you start to see the data given, the response rate was 100% higher when using both the connectedness and the Christian identity sentence. Then a couple of months later, we did exactly the same thing, again, a new letter that went out exactly the same between all of the conditions. And this time we connect people to God, and to the charity, the charity status will be depressing identity and connectedness to the staff of the organization. And here giving was 110 to 140%, higher, so response rate was more than doubled. When, when using these identities in this organization, again, no statistical difference in any average gift amount. So we've kept giving them out the same, we've just increased the number of people that are given in response to the donation ask, by focusing on the identities and the people that they want to connect with, just in the kind of space before that finish you asked. And, of course, we always got to keep an eye on wellbeing. So at 71, we measured how competent people feel, how autonomous they feel, and how connected to others they feel in their support with the organization. And then after these three communication tests that went out, we re surveying the same donors 51:24 to see if that wellbeing had changed. You know, we want to ensure that we haven't increased, everyone's giving, but drained how they feel about themselves. The ideal situation is that we increased the wellbeing by speaking to people in this way. And while autonomy and competence remained stable, these remain consistent between the two, seven points, what we did do was significantly increased how connected people felt to the beneficiaries, to the others affiliated with the organization. So yes, connectedness to others, that people felt that that one of those main measures of psychological wellbeing did increase between the two survey points. So just before we get to any questions, we've got a slide here, if you want to come back to this at any any kind of data point. The first bullet point here is a link to the certificate and philanthropic psychology. So there's an eight week course that we that we offer at the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy, that goes much more in depth into a lot of the factors that we've talked about today. And many, many more, as I'm sure Tim will contested. So there's a link for that there. And we've also got a new relationship fundraising report, where we'll go more in depth into the kind of examples that we've, we've given today and other organization that's coming out in the next month. So keep an eye keep an eye out for that as well. So now, I think we can 52:59 skip keeping an eye on some of the questions, I could see a few people. So I actually wanted to turn to Terry Brown, who asked a really good, great question. 53:11 Yes. And I, Harriet, I've got a dataset from a music organization. Lyric. Yes, 53:22 yes, that's exactly what I was thinking out to. Yeah, I've brought it up here. So Lyric Opera from Chicago. And they're obviously a musical organization. So as soon as I saw that, I thought, Oh, let me quickly get this up. So completely understand that compassion, love, kindness might not fit. So just to give you an idea of some of the self words that came up for them. And obviously, this might not exactly be the same for your organization to take it with a pinch of salt. But I hope this gives you a bit more of a steer. So some of the self words that came up that are a bit different are intelligent, curious, thoughtful, creative, generous smarts, you know. So I think intelligent, curious, thoughtful, and creative, are probably more aligned with your organization and what you're doing. So the way that they kind of added that in was instead of, you'll do join a group of like minded art lovers, it'll be you'll join a group of curious and kind of lovers instead of your gift. It's your thoughtful gift. So definitely remember, intelligent, curious, thoughtful and creative because those were some of the ones that came up for Lyric Opera, that if you wanted to add anything to that, Catherine sorry, 54:42 yes. There's also a supporter identity measured, and that had passionate and enthusiastic that came out that I quite like I thought for music organization. You know, that passion and that that drive I'm sure is very prominent within With any kind of music lovers when they're thinking about it, I also thought about collective identities just as a brain, brainwave thinking about ensembles and choruses and whether, you know, always talking to a group of becoming part of a group of people. It's always kind of done, as well. 55:21 Yeah, absolutely. So hope that helps a bit more. Alyssia or Alicia? I'm very sorry, I'm, if I got that wrong. Your question. In this example, we're doing his boss to describe themselves and why they don't know, do you know if they were open ended responses or three different options to choose from? So the questions that we asked them were, what are the top five words that you use to describe yourself as a person, and then they would lift openness, those top five, and then what are the top five words that you would use to describe yourself as a supporter of insert organization, so it wasn't kind of dropdowns that people had to choose from, they very much have the option to, you know, go creative and put in whatever came to mind. So they had a lot of freedom that. castling if you want to take the one about sample surveys. 56:21 No, we don't really have any sample surveys that we that we send that we send out what we do. When we do have a new organization, we'd like to send out a data survey, have a look at doing a communication audit, what kind of themes are kind of running through the communication, and then what we can do as an academic literature search. Using things like Google Scholar, which is really accessible. To anybody that goes on, it's just got a.google.com, I think is the actual website, you will find many kind of scales from from from there. If you don't, if you don't have any where to start, that's where what I would think about I think about the kinds of things that I know, I'm going to resonate well with my donors and see if I can find any system scales. Also, if you think about the kind of questions you want to ask your donors, you can just you can just ask them, some of the best answers and knowledge we get are very open ended questions, where we just say to people tell us how you feel, you know, how do you feel about your other supporters? How do you feel about us as an organization, and the things that people tell you from from that the kind of words they're using the kind of common themes that are coming up? are really very, very telling. And we get some absolutely beautiful stories from there and directions. But, you know, we take direction from the donors, who are they? What do they feel what they love, and just asking, that is really quite helpful. 57:58 I also added in, we have an existing resource on just kind of general donor survey questions to ask. You know, I think that that what I've seen and started recommending is that more open ended information. And it's also the type of thing that you can add on a landing page after the donation is done, as opposed to the actual transaction itself, because they're primed in that moment, for the generosity, but then that extra call to action might be where you kind of send people and it's a little button you can add to like a neon page, for instance. But yeah, we got still got time for some other questions. Let's keep it going. 58:38 Yeah, there was somebody who an anonymous attendee who kind of along the same lines, just how do you suggest new organizations who don't have a big database or any database, the aggregate discovering self identity? I mean, yes, you're new and you're smaller, but then that also, like, maybe smaller if you have a small donor base, but then you're also in the brilliant position that hopefully you can reach out to people maybe by telephone, I mean, you don't have to think about gathering data as getting hundreds and hundreds of responses to a survey, just being able to pick up the phone speaking to your donors will give you so much more than getting, you know five half hearted responses on a survey that doesn't really tell you so much. So if you're in a position to pick up a phone, speak to people in your local community, if you do face to face events, or if you you know have a stall at affair, whatever it might be getting out and speaking to people face to face while you can. If you're smaller, you have those resources will be incredible. Because then you know, people will see your face they'll connect with you and then they'll have a human that they're connecting to as well. So yeah, all about those points of connections people. 59:53 Love to make sure we answer Cody's question which is I have Question but the language in terms of of d phi, or EDI is the other term that you might you know, the the order of the acronym that you folks might know. I'm part of food access nonprofit where donors are largely privileged white folks, our community, on the other hand, is largely folks of color with a much different relationship to privilege and power. Any suggestions on connecting the two without invoking pity or Savior mentality? I know we talked about this extensively in the course, folks, I have my certificate in philanthropic psychology, I earned a passing grade not with distinction, but that's how I'm going to let you folks answer this one. And I have an answer for Dara Daraa, as well. So I'll handle that in the chat. 1:00:47 Yeah, I was gonna say this is obviously very big in the sector at the moment. So I want to tread carefully. So absolutely. If you wanted to email us about this afterwards, then then you're welcome to but I think that what what really kind of strikes me when we're dealing with making sure that we're being as inclusive as possible is not to think about what separates people, but what is the point of connection that anybody and everybody can agree on, which is why I think that focus on, you know, the the moral identities and the identities like kindness and compassion or being a caring individual, because it doesn't matter what color your skin is, you can still identify as being that person. So I would, I would say, in terms of the identities, if you're looking to go down that route, look for the identities that can bind and connect anybody regardless of color, because that that is the best way to go. And then you won't potentially find yourself in any hot water or potentially offending anybody. So always going for your kind heart, your caring nature, all of those good and wonderful things that have nothing to do with color of 1:02:06 skin, and even some of the data that we had. So folks, if you haven't downloaded the the donor report, chapter five, heavily, heavily focuses on philanthropic psychology. But actually some of the earlier research that we did, focused on the different ways that that ethnicities, and LGBTQ donors and, and income levels donate. And again, to Harriet's point, Catherine's point, people are generous. And so you have to tap into the ways that you can get people to really activate their identity. But as we saw with that list, there's many different layers that you can do there. So really interesting stuff. Maybe we have time for, for one more question. I think I see someone like Mario as because I think, Jennifer, we're going to try to get those resources. In fact, the links that were included, that will be in the deck for you to click, guess what, we actually are taking the time to put that right into the follow up email to for the Institute for Sustainable philanthropies certificate course. So maybe Mario's question might be a good one, the giving goals, the numbers question versus identity, actually. 1:03:27 Yeah, so how do you find it helpful in stating given goals like trying to raise $10,000? So immediately, when I read this, it made me think all the way back to Charles Sumner Ward, who was kind of the grandfather of giving, and he was the guy who had that clock rose, like, yeah, we're $5 Closer, we're $10 Closer. So, you know, I would always say that having some kind of goal to incentivize is, is good. And I don't think that that would kind of go against appealing to kindness and compassion, because you can still be a kind and compassion person, regardless of whether they fit their goal exceeded their goal. So in terms of whether to do it or not, I would say yes, because it wouldn't impede anything that you're trying to do in terms of making the person feel good. If anything, you know, it just took these people off it that makes them maybe get up like, oh my gosh, we're $10 Closer. Let me go and give another $10 Now, so yeah, makes me think of Charles Sumner Ward and his little clock, which I think is always 1:04:32 I could also give you an opportunity for a celebration once you've hit the target. Contact everybody who gave like we did to kind of get everyone together in group. Again, reinforce that those identities. Your generosity, did it. So you have that goal. It's all about the money but the thank you is still all about the identity. Yes, 1:04:58 folks, this has been Fantastic. I'm adding a few resources we actually have when it comes to activating those generosity moments that people might respond to similar to the goals and things like that we have another great set of content coming up. It's called Dream Big in July. It's a free summit on creating digital generosity moments. So we're going to hear from a few experts here, but keep this this in mind, this is heavily influenced the work that we're doing here at NEON one, I have to say, in fact, rule number one, Harriet and Catherine of the connected fundraising philosophy is focused on people not money. Actually, that's rule number one. So thank you for for popping your information in there. Any final words, before we let people go, we're going to also have an opportunity if folks want to continue the conversation in our Slack channel. Alicia is in there all the time, for instance, but you know, we I want to tell you, you too, Carol says this is amazing and refreshing knowledge and information that gives me new freedom in how I speak about my organization and our work to our donors, I will make sure to email you that by the way. So you can, you can have that but any final words. 1:06:20 Just final words is thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for listening, we're obviously really big advocate advocates for so feels like because we love it. But it truly does transform fundraising. So I tucked my email in there. So if you ever wanted to email about anything, you know, I'm open, feel free to contact me anytime 1:06:38 people, people want the report, I'm just dropping tons of resources. Today, and again, we're gonna include these in the email in terms of the psychology, the specifics, I highly recommend if you can get professional development money, nyan actually did that for me. And it was transformative in how I think about the sector, how I think about generosity. And and so Brenda's, are you going to use it. And folks, I have to dive into the data. I'll end on this one of our clients is being helped by a consultant T clay buck. And, and I just got some data that showed that when they were instituting some of the emails that I know he's been helping them with, they actually were in our top five most improved fundraising, compared to 2020. With 2021, we got a new research, we're looking at 250 million emails. I asked who's the top 50 Most Improved? I know they were one of them. So I want to dive into that and see if there's a correlation. But it's definitely we're looking at subject lines preview text, like really exciting research that so so 1:07:54 email client congratulating 1:07:58 them, they're so awesome, awesome, folks. Reach out to us tell you tell us how you implement this. We want to hear what you're doing. And we'll have more opportunities to hear about this too. I think we're gonna we're going to invite you folks back actually later in the year if we can, we'll get Professor Xiang to also join us. I believe she's writing a book on this. So yes, yes. I mean, I can't wait. So folks, this is such a pleasure. Thank you for joining us. Let's continue. These conversations will share we would love you to share in the connected fundraising community. Any copy that you're doing anything that you're doing, I'll make sure to pass it on the Harriet and Catherine to get some sleep folks. I know it's late though, so I don't 1:08:39 want to keep Thanks, Tim. Thanks. 1:08:43 Thank you have a wonderful day and we'll talk soon. Perfect. 1:08:47 Bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai