Attracting and Retaining Dedicated Donors: The Digital Quest and Beyond

 Attracting and retaining donors in a non-profit organization is a complex process that requires continuous engagement, networking, and a strategic spread of awareness. Before the digital era, such efforts were done mostly in person, through direct mail campaigns, and community events, the least. If one could afford it, media outlets such as radio and television were also used to spread the word. 

The basic requirement remains the same, however: your story should be convincing and instill resonance in the hearts of listeners and viewers. If this is about a struggling child who lives in а dysfunctional family, where one or both parents are alcoholics or narcotic addicts who neglect their kid, then it should be described vividly, in colors, with some introductory background, a rising action: challenge or injustice that is happening to the character, and the climax, the critical moment where the character is now. Then we bring our listeners’ attention to this turning point and tell them that the character’s destiny is unwritten yet and could be improved with collective efforts. This is where the cause, mission, and goals of an organization are articulated and where the importance of raising funds can be explained. 

The listeners are intrigued, and some want to become remarkable figures in the story, impacting the way future events are unfolding for the main character. Once the donors are looped in, they anticipate hearing and witnessing the continuation of the character’s story. What has been done? How did it affect the child? Where is he now? 

With the introduction of digital spaces, the logic behind donor-cause correlation hasn’t changed: there must be some sort of emotional and cognitive alignment between the first and latter; the only difference is the vastness and magnitude of information spread and the tools that must be used strategically to disseminate information and attract the right people to the corresponding cause. Therefore, when we try to optimize an organization’s website and make it stand out in the digital ocean, we must think of ourselves as authors who write a captivating story that instills genuine interest in readers and keeps them on their toes, craving to know more and hoping to witness a happy ending. 

With this logic, it is easier to stay tuned and focused on the main goal, because then you know that anything that is articulated on the web pages, within their intermediary layers and outskirts, is a cohesive story where no fragment or word is at random but is interconnected meaningfully. So, regardless of what page you start on, the way the journey is designed can make you read anywhere and still get you to the right destination. It requires consistency in the way the text and terminology are used across the organization’s web pages, ensuring that links are functional, sources are accurate and not misleading, and the content presentation is visually accessible. 

A lot of content creators struggle with words, and as a result, the names that they assign to different sections of the website and the terminology that they use to describe certain activities on it are all weak and inconsistent. As a result, visitors' time on page is low, session durations are short, and the bounce rates are high. 

In one case, a youth support organization does not have one solid word or term to describe the target group, consisting of legal guardians, social workers, and crisis workers who want to help minors. There are no guidelines on the main page on where they should go. One way to resolve this is to add “Help Seekers” to the main menu next to “Donors,” or simply “Get Help,” if it is next to “Donate.” 

For those visitors who represent both the help-seeker and philanthropist groups, the story is abruptly interrupted, and instead of continuing their journey, they activate their long-term memory in the search for an answer, and if patient enough, they could rummage through the pages for some time in search of answers. This is a rather frustrating experience for them that can eventually demotivate them from continuing or even returning to the website.

The visual clutter and poor design choices are also distracting factors that interfere with the smooth user journey. Some designers dismiss the importance of a good contrast ratio between the background and text colors, which should not fall below 4.5:1 (for the body text), causing readers' eye strain that stops them from continuing reading. A good story shouldn’t have distracting factors, whether they are visual or conceptual. 

Perhaps a good analogy to a poor web storyline is shooting a bad movie where the background decorations are irrelevant to the movie plot and represent a different sentiment, era, or culture, and where the dialogues between the actors are mediocre, unconvincing, and at times very confusing. Ideally, the background decoration (interior, landscape), actors’ outfits, and other accompanying requisites should reinforce the storyline and not dilute it. As for the movie script, not only does it have to be consistent and have a logical structure, but there must also be something genuine and believable about it, something that could keep the viewer’s attention. 

For the donors, the story does not end with chipping in and receiving a confirmation message with warm gratitude. We shouldn’t forget about the story resolution. How can we ensure that the donors are kept in the loop and willingly so? One natural and unobtrusive way to do it is to ask them in that confirmation message directly: 

Would you like to stay in the loop and get impact updates and behind-the-scenes progress? 

 yes | no 

Any person likes to feel that he has the freedom to choose, and nothing is enforced on them. He can opt in or out at any time, but it is almost always the case that they want to be looped in. After all, it is thanks to their generous and attentive contribution that those vital life changes were possible. 

Through the compelling stories of rescue, survival, and escape, we want to find a deeper meaning for ourselves. It is the light at the end of the tunnel that keeps us going, and continuous examples and variations of this phenomenon – the happy ending - make us relive this experience over and over, reminding us of some universal goodness and an overall optimistic future. For some, this is achieved through professional accomplishments and career growth; for others, this feeling is relived through artistic or literary imagination; and for others, it is supported by continuous charity and philanthropy. 

To understand the charity and philanthropy personality types better, we need to acquaint ourselves with their inner (deeper) motivations and aspirations. What is the light at the end of the tunnel for them? One of the answers is the accomplishments of others whom they helped. At the very basis. But there could be variations of these answers: 

• self-actualization through helping others, 
• emotional and spiritual satisfaction through giving, 
• and maybe for some, an ego-boosting experience. 

Based on those inner motivations, it would be easier to formulate words that create emotional resonance with our target donor group, incorporating them into the organization’s language purposefully and using the language on the web pages strategically, without disrupting the smooth flow of our story. 

It is important to remember that donor experience does not end in the digital space, as this is just one of the mediums through which an important message is communicated. When an event is advertised on the organization’s website or a social media page, the actual event must deliver what it promised. It solidifies the relationships between donors and an organization, signals trustworthiness and credibility, and helps build a good reputation.

Habit-Forming Designs to Eliminate Behavioral Addictions

There's an ongoing debate about whether the habit-forming designs are ethical at their core, and we've seen what modern designs can do to an ordinary user and his attention:

• Gradually develops dependence on virtual validation through likes, positive comments, and an increased number of followers, which is all a surrogate and replacement for real connections
• Encourages behavioral addictions related to gambling, dating, shopping, and news
• Reduces user attention span because of how unchallenging and simplistic the content gets, for example: video reels, shorts, and tweets. 

Designers serve companies' interests, ensuring that their targeted users engage with the offered services continuously and, in some cases, develop behavioral patterns that would keep them hooked on the given app or website. Such designs have an intentionally strategic approach that taps into the user's goals and pain points. 

The Hooked book, written by Nir Eyal, explicitly discusses the model that helps designers build applications for user retention and their continuous engagement with these apps.

The author taps into human vulnerabilities that are the foundation of their internal triggers, such as fear, loneliness, boredom, or any other negative emotional experience that would motivate users to do something to alleviate such feelings.

The Hooked Model demonstrates stages in user engagement that lead to habit formation:

Considering how well this model works with user retention and their habit development, it may serve an even more important purpose: to help fight behavioral addictions. To name a few that are very popular these days:

• Eating disorders
• Gambling
• Impulsive spending
• Attachment issues
• FOMO (fear of missing out) in dating

Below is an example of how the Hook Model can be applied in creating an app to help someone with spending addiction:

Hook Model for Impulsive Spending Recovery App

The hook model and the design example above demonstrate the continuous loop of four stages that keeps a user engaged with the app. The internal triggers that this model accesses are at the core of every user's needs or scarcity of these needs. This means that regardless of the surface reason behind the user's motivation, such as:

        "I need a reliable, high-performance car."

...there is another one that lies a little deeper:

         "Life feels dull - I need a change."

But this isn't the final explanation, because there is one that is even deeper:

         "I can't change everything, but I can choose this."

And if we narrow it down to the very basic, we get the root cause of all the above reasons:

        "I can't change everything around me, but with this purchase, I reclaim control."

Another example that showcases social media addiction:

Surface layer: "I want to be notified when I receive a new comment."

Deeper layer: "I want to ensure that my post resonates with many."

Even deeper: "I need to feel validated because I want proof that my existence is meaningful."

The root cause: "I am afraid to be rejected and stay alone."

Identifying the root cause of users' pain points is what makes the design impactful, and at the same time, it offers users the promise that their life quality can be significantly improved.