Insufficient Justification

Being creative, once a week, on a deadline, requires careful thought and planning. I thought about my plan to ask my beloved what I was going to write about on Sunday morning. I thought, "I'll ask over breakfast, while he cooks and is in service mode." Here's what happened.

To neuropsychologist Otis Fulton: "Honey I have a problem. Often, I find that my clients have spent a lot of time and effort soliciting really nice gifts like airline tickets, cruises, gift cards and the like. And they have been using these gifts to reward fundraisers. They strongly believe these gifts are great and that people fundraise to get them. What do you think about that?"

His head cocked to one side, wearing his traditional cooking garb of sweat pants and a T-shirt, with furrowed brow, Otis says, "Oh sweetie, that is a huge problem, in a number of ways." His voice is fair, lilting with delight at the chance to enhance another conversation with foot-notable research.

"Really, tell me more," I say, chin on hand as I sit at the peninsula with my coffee.

"Well," Otis says, waving his spatula, "the first problem is the value of the reward. Small rewards can be more effective than large rewards in motivating behavior.[i] We call this the 'less is more' effect. If you are trying to gain ever higher compliance—which I take pushing peer-to-peer fundraisers to ever higher fundraising to be—it is essential that the fundraiser cannot mentally use the reward to justify their fundraising."

The toast is burning now as he plops down beside me.

Otis continues, "In other words, the incentive must be seen as providing 'insufficient justification' to produce the behavior.[ii] If the individual can attribute his or her behavior to being motivated by significant rewards like an airline ticket, they will begin to see their behavior as being motivated by the reward. In this case we would call the reward extrinsic motivation, instead of intrinsic motivation, which, in the nonprofit world, is the desire to help the mission."

"Could you grab the butter and the juice please?"

"When rewards are extrinsic, the relationship to the cause becomes transactional," Otis continues. "For example, people devoting 50 hours of their time to fundraising who are given a $500 iPad make the unconscious mental calculation that they have been working for $10 an hour. This is the beginning of the end of their commitment to the cause. Extrinsic rewards are unsustainable by fundraising organizations, and will eventually result in less commitment."

Otis pauses, looks up in the air, and notes, index finger on chin, "But, extrinsic rewards do produce great results if you are looking for a one time behavior. And that may be why your clients see them as successful. They likely are only looking at a single year return."

I say, "Oh honey, let's talk about that next Sunday (when I have another deadline looming), OK?"

So, in other words, "sufficient justification," or reward in this case, leads to less sufficient motivation and a more transactional experience for the fundraiser. "Insufficient justification" or reward leads to not only sufficient motivation but also a more sustainable, mission-oriented experience for fundraisers.

i. Leippe, M. R., & Eisenstadt, D. (1994). Generalization of dissonance reduction: decreasing prejudice through induced compliance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 395-413.

ii. Festinger, L. & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58(2), 203.