Fighting for the Donation Pie
There are more NPOs putting their hand out for donations every year – whales, environment, religion, bushfires, floods, international water shortage, and the list keeps growing. So there are a few facts NPOs need to come to terms with. First, all things being equal the donations pie is finite. Second, every new NPO putting a hand out for donations takes a small percentage of that finite pie. A dollar given to one charity becomes unavailable to the others.
The business of charities is to fight for their slice of that finite donation pie which comes from a tiny portion of our disposable incomes. Numerous large charities have been successful at getting a dollar from a large demographic (target market) as an ongoing concern. But as new entrants have crowded into the charity market for the easy dollar the donation game has moved toward niche charities that service smaller more specific causes.
Occasionally something happens on a par with Black Saturday, Australia’s largest natural disaster. Temporarily the donations pie will grow, but it’s disproportionate and doesn’t transpose over to other charities. In fact, other charities would have found it almost impossible to compete for those limited dollars from the average man and woman. Remember that finite pocket the average person calls their disposable income? The operative word for those funds is lifestyle. For the vast majority we pay rent / mortgage, clothing, food, and we’re left with somewhere between twenty and a hundred dollars to support our lifestyle. That translates to a latte here and a taxi there and maybe a trip to the movies or a few beers.
The challenge of every NPO is to persuade you to forgo the lifestyle value afforded by a portion of your disposable income. The environment they have to work in is a noisy one, crowded with other just causes. Other equally just causes.
This is not a new idea but it’s worth repeating. A good marketer would recommend they don’t just push out a hand into every face and ask for money. We’re tired of that. Every NPO is doing that. I just gave to the kid on the corner who had a tin and a red ribbon, and promised the faceless girl on my telephone I’d sell tickets around the neighbourhood. The new idea is to compete like any other business out there – stop asking and start working for that pie.
Ditch cold calls entirely. No more children on every corner panhandling a tin. Don’t ask us for money when we’re drinking at a bar. No more large administration costs chewing 70% of the donations on office rental, executive wages and shiny cars. And don’t ask us to give out of guilt.
Sell us a photograph with all profits going to charity. Offer us an experience worth paying for like a fair or a movie or a piece of home made pie or a charity rally. Engage us as charity consumers. Become very good at marketing what you do and being a business. There’s an economics maxim that says there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
