When a nonprofit wants to raise more money, conventional wisdom suggests bombarding donors with emotional appeals and compelling data. But what if the secret to unlocking greater charitable giving lies in understanding how people actually make decisions?

In a recent fireside chat, Victoria Vrana, CEO of GlobalGiving, and Sarah Welch, Managing Director of Charitable Giving & Philanthropy at ideas42 explore the unexpected insights from behavioral science that are transforming how organizations approach fundraising—and changing philanthropy worldwide.

Editor’s Note: The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Audio clips from the original fireside chat are embedded throughout.

 

Victoria Vrana: The thing I loved about working with you all is that unlike funding research at an academic center, your research was so experimental. So often when you fund academics to do deep research – which is super important – it doesn’t get into the hands of nonprofits and the people who need it. Your research around giving was designed to always be in partnership with the people and platforms doing the work. Can you describe a little bit about how ideas42 is different than other kinds of research I was funding when I was at the Gates Foundation? Because I remember it being “actionable” – I could watch people like you try something, and if it works, then people would start doing it.

 

Sarah Welch: Absolutely! It’s important to understand that a big part of the behavioral approach is recognizing the reality of real life context. So, if we just did lab tests and academic tests, we’re not going to get to that piece, right? So for us at ideas42, it’s very important to test things in the field. We’ve probably partnered with, I would say, 30 plus organizations over the years to run real tests in the field – including you all here at GlobalGiving. And sometimes experiments don’t work out. Sometimes we get neutral results – or it doesn’t seem to work quite the way you wanted, which is actually really useful to have. We also often do co-design sessions and then test it with partners.

 

Victoria Vrana: You’re kind of a glue that connects people together. Well, I want to dive into the research. You and I talked about so many amazing findings that this team would be really interested in, can we start with the equity boost experiment? And what you learned from that.

 

Sarah Welch:, Yes, I have to give you a little behavioral background on that. So one big thing in the space early on, we came in and we said – in early conversations with you, Vic. I think we were like, “Okay, how do donors give?” Like, they sit down and they say, “Where should I give today?” And then they make a decision. They do some research, and then they give. And I think what we quickly found is that that’s not how people give in real life. 

Most people are giving in response to a specific solicitation from an organization. So something has caught their eye and they often go in with a pretty specific organization in mind. And you know, offhand, maybe 80% of giving happens that way. And so if you want to get in there and help influence giving. If you want people to be more generous or give in a different way. Your options are kind of either you figure out that 20% of other moments where people are strategically thinking. Or you get in somehow and hijack or piggyback on that solicitation that’s happening right?

Amazon does this all the time like: “Did you forget? Did you know? Do you want to add something else to your cart?” Basically, that’s what we want to bring here.

And we see this as a moment, not only to prompt donors to give more generously, of course, which is wonderful, but also to  educate them maybe a little bit right in that moment.

 

Victoria Vrana: I think that’s so relevant for GlobalGiving. And you know we do that in some ways ourselves. But that’s like that’s huge, especially as we’re rebuilding our checkout right now, redesigning it. It reminds me, Sarah, wasn’t there some research around big name brand organizations, and then some smaller local ones – and how the brand of the bigger ones are almost a halo for the smaller unknown ones?

 

Sarah Welch: Yeah, that’s an effective way to approach it, too. There’s some good research to draw it from that also works well from both of these things. There are just so many organizations out there. So finding ways to make it easier for donors to navigate that space. So, bringing either a smaller list of organizations or to choose from, or bundling right? So you don’t actually have to make the choice. Those are also effective interventions.

 

 

Victoria Vrana: We’re always trying to think about how to get organizations with less visibility and get them in front of donors. So those are some great ideas I know. Let’s touch on high net worth donors – either what influences, advisors, or what influences high net worth donors themselves.

 

Sarah Welch: So in our research, we’ve probably done 75 to 100 interviews with high net worth donors, and we almost always try to ask: “When did you shift the way you’re giving?” Especially as a lot of these people have started giving more money or giving in a more strategic way. And what we hear are a variety of two different types of influences: external events in the world and personal events. Externally there was a disaster, or internally there was a change in financial situation. And so if you want to get into those individual personal moments, what we’re seeing in terms of the best way to do that is looking at that intermediary space. There are certainly donor collectives who play that kind of intermediary role. But even more importantly, I think, it’s about financial advisors, philanthropic advisors.

There’s a growing momentum to understand this space, in particular, with the great wealth transfer that’s coming down the pike right now and the competition with AI and Robo advisors. These people who are in a financial advising position for years have been able to just focus on the nuts and bolts of money, but not necessarily the philanthropic, true philanthropic support, and that’s starting to shift.

 

Victoria Vrana: Yeah, it is. I mean, the more money and the more gifts that come out of that space, I think the ecosystem around those donors is growing and growing. I mean, I’ve just seen it explode. What are the intermediaries doing to help?

 

Sarah Welch: We just launched a course with Daylight on behavioral philanthropy for advisors which I’m really excited about because it’s like, “How do you get to advisors, and get to their training?” That’s one way.

 

 

Victoria Vrana: Yeah, that’s a great thing! I know we’re getting to the very end of time. One quick piece of advice you’d share with folks here today.

 

Sarah Welch I was going to say something about behavioral science, but actually given that we just had this conversation about equity boost,  I think what I would say instead, is that one of the big findings from our research is that it’s really hard to be neutral in this space. I want to be careful how I say this, because I think it means different things for different platforms, and different roles that you play.

But if you want to change giving behaviors, including just making people more generous. Over and over we’ve seen that it’s helpful to have an opinion to put your thumb on the scale in some way. I think you have to figure out what the right balance is, but I think to encourage more generosity and to help donors navigate many choices to help surface or spotlight the smaller organizations, it does require taking a stance in some way.

 

Victoria Vrana: That is good and important advice for these times, for sure. Well, our whole conversation has made me so excited. The WHO right now is doing a campaign asking, if a billion people gave $1, they’d have a billion dollars which would help a lot right now, and so I was totally moved by that a couple of days ago, and I tried to give more than $1, and my credit card didn’t go through right? And so like friction, you know, that’s one of the basic behavioral science stuff. So after we finish this, I’m going to multitask. And I’m going to complete my gift to the WHO, because I’ve been feeling guilty for days. 

From the psychology behind Amazon’s “add to cart” prompts, to the upcoming great wealth transfer, Welch and Vrana’s conversation reveals just how much human behavior shapes charitable giving. Their insights challenge the traditional view that donors make careful, researched decisions about their philanthropy – including how the path to increasing generosity may lie in meeting donors where they are; whether that’s during an impulse donation at checkout or through conversations with their financial advisors. 

For organizations looking to boost their impact, understanding these behavioral nuances isn’t just helpful – it’s essential for building a more generous and equitable future for philanthropy.