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by Robert F. Sharpe, Jr.
 In
times of economic prosperity characterized by large amounts of discretionary
income and capital, fund raising activity tends to focus on the basics: planning
and organization, training and motivating volunteers and staff, tracking
progress, acknowledging gifts, and stewarding ongoing relationships. In good
times, gifts are often presumed to be primarily motivated by the donor’s
desire to support the mission of a particular organization or institution. For
those with a strong case for support, asking for gifts from enough people, often
enough, on a consistent basis, normally leads to results that are at least
acceptable, if not exceptional.
Today,
however, the “wealth effect” of the 1990s has subsided and provides less
impetus for across the board increases in giving. The most successful programs
are beginning to more closely examine why individual donors have given in the
past and, more importantly, how they may be motivated to give in the future.
While examining the reasons for past generosity can offer some indication of the
likelihood of future giving, personal priorities and values can and do change
over time. Donors may require different and in some cases more compelling
reasons to give when demands on their capital seem to come from every direction.
What
motivates a gift?
Unfortunately,
there is no simple answer. People give for many and varied reasons. Although
those outside the world of development may assume that donors give primarily to
gain recognition or tax savings, those desires are only part of the picture.
What are the other motivators?
Religion
appears to inspire more charitable gifts than any other motivation. In fact, the
majority of charitable gifts in America each year are designated for
religious-based charities. According to the Giving USA report, charitable
organizations with religious affiliations received nearly 40% of all charitable
gifts in 2001.
By
comparison, education and health care combined accounted for just 24% of
individual giving.
Despite
the personal nature of religious beliefs, successful fundraisers should make
every effort to understand them and their role in the gift planning process if
they want to help their donors make their gifts most effectively. For instance,
in a number of religious traditions, it is possible to achieve the greatest
satisfaction in giving only by making gifts anonymously.
With
such a donor, offering a naming opportunity or otherwise emphasizing recognition
for a gift may actually seem insensitive and may even be offensive to some.
Social
motivations are another major factor that influences charitable giving behavior.
Many donors who are not motivated by religious beliefs hold definite ideas
regarding social responsibility that include the duty to share with others and
to invest in social infrastructure.
It
is often the case that persons who have accumulated or inherited substantial
wealth believe they have an obligation as part of a “social contract” to
help meet the needs of society. Philanthropy has long been one of the behaviors
expected of those who would be community leaders and members of influential
social circles in a culture built on a combination of democracy and capitalism.
Political
beliefs can also come into play. Some persons are adamantly opposed to
government taxation and spending for social welfare and cultural purposes.
Within that group are the “social Darwinists” who believe in “survival of
the fittest.” Others, however, believe that they are “stewards” of capital
and have a duty to reinvest it for the benefit of mankind through a voluntary
system of wealth redistribution. Still others believe in European-style social
democracy with involuntary redistribution of wealth through high taxes,
universal government benefits, and little or no private philanthropy.
Understanding where donors fit on the political spectrum can be a key to helping
them decide whether, when, and how to make their gifts.
A
discussion of the many emotional motivations for charitable gifts could
fill volumes. Virtually every human emotion can inspire a charitable gift. Gifts
in memory of or in honor of others are obviously emotionally charged (see page
3). Quite different emotions may motivate donors who wish to gain recognition or
notoriety for themselves through their gifts.
Other
gifts can be guided by a combination of emotions. Consider, for example, the
complex forces at work in the mind of a man who has been asked to make a major
gift to a university medical facility. This university is pursuing
state-of-the-art research on a genetically linked disease that has already taken
the life of his wife of 40 years—research that may in the future save the
lives of his own children.
Suppose
the same institution recently announced a decision to condone behavior on campus
that the donor finds morally objectionable. Experienced development officers
appreciate the challenges such conflicting emotions can present and will work to
obtain a mutually agreeable outcome.
Because
emotions can be so powerful, it is tempting to overemphasize them at the expense
of other factors that may be more relevant. The key is to find a way to
understand and satisfy donors’ emotions and desires without manipulating those
persons who may be at their most emotionally vulnerable, particularly older
donors and those who have recently lost a loved one. As a result, this is one of
the areas of fund development in which experience, personal integrity, maturity,
and judgment are especially important. Board members and development officers
should seek out these characteristics when hiring staff with planned and major
gift responsibilities.
Lastly,
economic quid pro quo is perhaps the most misunderstood motivator of
charitable gifts. While it is true that there are significant tax and other
financial benefits associated with certain types of gifts, it may be an
increasingly dangerous mistake for fundraisers to assume that these factors are
more than occasionally the root motivator for gifts. Remember that donors
receive the same tax benefits regardless of the recipient of their charitable
gifts, and most nonprofits offer the same or similar payment rates.
This
is why, at the end of the day, planned gift marketing activities based solely in
tax and other benefits seldom produce meaningful or long-term results. In fact,
such efforts may simply serve to educate donors who then decide to complete
gifts with other charitable interests that satisfy their true donative intent.
 Herein
lies the paradox. In today’s world of major gift development, it is vital to
understand the economics of larger charitable transfers, but it is also
important to realize that those economics in the end rarely motivate the gift
itself. A study commissioned by NCPG in 2002 affirms this fact (see page 3).
The
most successful gift planners know the importance of non-financial motivations
and thus tend to put the “gift” before the “plan.” They know it is
difficult if not impossible to transform even the best “what,” “when,”
and “how” into the “why” behind the gift.
The
interconnection of the motivations discussed above illustrates how rare it is to
find a single motivation as the sole reason behind a gift. Most larger gifts
tend to involve complex relationships between a number of these factors.
Understanding the “motivational molecule” depicted above is a major key to
successfully arriving at the correct gift solution.
Completing
the puzzle
After
fundraisers develop a greater understanding of the basic motivators for
charitable gifts, the other pieces of the puzzle tend to fall into place. The
property that a donor uses to make a gift may be decided upon in part by
economics, in part by emotion, and in part by other considerations. A similar
combination of factors usually determines the timing of a gift.
The
property and timing, when decided, then naturally tend to drive the process
toward a particular gift planning vehicle. In times when donors are perhaps more
likely to closely scrutinize requests for gifts, fundraisers would be wise to
devote more energy to gaining a better understanding of why donors give.
Learning about gifts donors may have made in the past can shed some light on
their motivations. In the final analysis, however, there is no substitute for
carefully maintaining relationships with donors over time. That is the best way
to learn about motivations that are not detectable through electronic screening
and other impersonal means.
The
best laid plans
Even
in the best of times, donors will sometimes express reluctance to make a gift in
the context of a capital campaign or other fund development effort, in spite of
earlier expressions of interest and careful analysis of a donor’s motivations
and the other components of the gift. What then?
In
this article we have explored some of the basics of why donors make gifts. Next
month, we will examine the reasons why otherwise motivated donors will sometimes
decide not to make a gift, and how to respond in ways that can salvage gifts
that otherwise might not come to fruition.
Editor’s note:
This article is the first of a two-part series. Part II, entitled “Why Don’t
People Give More?,” will be featured in the March issue of Give & Take.
This article is based in part on Session III of the Sharpe seminar “Major Gift
Planning, Part I.” See page 7 for upcoming dates and locations or visit www.sharpenet.com/seminars.
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