Ever wonder about the decision to ask supporters to donate their time vs. donating their money? If you are a fundraising professional, a worthy question to consider. For example, should you ask donors for time and then money; or just time or just money? It’s termed the “Time-Ask Effect”.
Primarily the question is:
“How much time would they like to donate” -vs- “How much money would they like to donate”, and how much they ultimately do donate to a charity. Well, professors Wendy Liu of UCLA and Jennifer Aaker of Cal Berkeley studied these concepts in remarkable depth.* They conducted various experiments and explored many theories on the topic. Moreover, the professors studied the psychological well-being of the donors after giving time or money or both. So what are the findings? To oversimplify, it’s a good outcome if you first ask individuals to donate their time. This leads to a “significant increase in actual amounts of contribution” of time and money.
Folks that donate time generally get comfortable and confident about an organization and its cause. After donating time, they gain a sense of well-being and feel good about themselves. Naturally, they progress to feeling good about donating money because they are familiar with where and how the money will be used.
Some political grassroots orgs ask donors to substitute their time to make a few phone contacts in lieu of donating money. It’s clear where they place value and it shows in the huge money rakes they receive.
These new donor econometrics clearly say build a solid volunteer program and the money will follow.
*Journal of Consumer Research, May 2008: “The Happiness of Giving: The Time-Ask Effect”
Thank you, Kamran, for "walking the talk" of donating time. You offered a fine synthesis of a very comprehensive - and lengthy - report.
Here's the .pdf link:
http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=crb
Thanks again!
Posted by: Anne Clelland | March 06, 2009 at 08:42 AM