Unlock Your Nonprofit’s Impact With Habit-Forming Donor Experiences

Acquiring new donors can be costly. But what if you had a strategy for not only acquiring and retaining more donors — but also increasing their lifetime values?

By offering habit-forming experiences, you can create the conditions that hook your donors and keep them coming back for more.

The digitally mediated world we live in is becoming an increasingly addictive place. We’re offered more and more addictive experiences, which is why many people struggle to moderate their use of iPhones, social media and more. 

Naturally, in for-profit businesses, habit-forming products are used to increase financial gains by turning their audience into repeat, habitual users. But imagine if nonprofits used these same principles for good. 

Harnessing the Positive Power of Habits

By hooking donors on the chance to change the world, you can tap into the positive power of habits to scale your impact and amplify your mission.

Because as you know, repeat donors give more and give more often. 

With well-designed, habit-forming donor experiences, you’ll offer a unique donor journey that allows you to:

• Increase the lifetime value of each donor.
• Secure more sustainable, predictable funding.
• Reduce the cost of donor acquisition and retention.
• Help donors feel more engaged and connected.
• Strengthen your competitive advantage.

And that sets you up for financial stability in the long term so you can create lasting impact.

4 Principles for Hook-Worthy Experiences

Nir Eyal, author of “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products,” offers a four-step framework for designing loops that hook people into cycles of repeat behavior. Since the best habit-forming experiences are consistent and meaningful interactions, they should encourage people to engage with your organization regularly and, ultimately, develop a habit of giving and staying involved.

Here’s the four-step framework, which is rooted in the psychology of consumer behavior, and how it can work for a nonprofit like yours.

1. Use Psychological Triggers to Engage People

These triggers can be external or internal. Examples of external triggers could include emails, direct mail and notifications. 

Internal triggers can be used to create an emotional experience that prompts people to act. For example, an open-loop narrative — an unresolved story that demonstrates a need — can trigger someone to take action to help provide the desired resolution and bring closure.

How to Apply This Trigger

Use your communications to cultivate an ongoing dialogue with your audience. Keep that dialogue going across various channels — email, social media, newsletters and so on.

Offer clear calls to action, and use personalization to keep your potential donors’ eyes glued on your message. Plus, you can use open-loop storytelling tactics to leave your audience hanging. Don’t tie up all your stories with a neat and tidy resolution. 

For example, if your organization seeks to end hunger, then offer unresolved stories that end with someone still experiencing hunger. This highlights the need for a donor to take action, priming your audience to step in and help create a desirable ending to close the loop.

2. Make the Action Simple

By keeping the action step effortless, you reduce friction and encourage repeat behavior that has the potential to become habitual.

How to Apply This Trigger

Eliminate barriers to action by making it as simple as possible. Place a donate button prominently on your website. Look for ways you can simplify your donation form. Make financial information easy to find. Provide donors with simple ways to update their giving information.

Additionally, ensure it’s easy to sign up for recurring donations. Include the option as a checkbox on donation forms. You can also make repeat giving more attractive by highlighting tangible rewards and perks people get when they sign up as recurring donors.

3. Offer Unpredictable Rewards

People love variable rewards that surprise and delight. Use personalization and gamification to engage people and keep them anticipating new surprises.

How to Apply This Trigger

Rewards can be highly addictive. (That’s why people can spend hours scrolling social media or gaming — each new video or each level unlocked offers a pleasurable hit of dopamine.)

Incentivize repeat giving by offering: 

• Progress tracking. Highlight how the donor’s gift helps make progress toward a specific goal.
• Exclusive content. Offer exclusive access to sneak peeks, success stories, behind-the-scenes insights and more.
• Gamification. Create challenges or milestones that donors can unlock with each gift and action.
• Impact updates. Showcase tangible impact and tell stories pointing back to the importance of the donor’s contribution.

These can help make the act of giving more rewarding. And with something they can look forward to, donors are more likely to keep coming back for more.

4. Encourage People to Invest — Beyond Their Financial Giving

When you invest time and effort into something (by creating a detailed personal profile, for example), you’re more likely to develop a sense of ownership. This helps deepen connection, engagement and loyalty.

How to Apply This Trigger

Create opportunities for people to invest beyond a donation. Cultivate a sense of community and belonging by offering a platform where donors can create a profile and connect with others.

Provide low-barrier ways to take additional action, such as: 

• Sending a message to a representative to lobby for change.
• Writing a letter to someone your nonprofit serves.
• Virtually adopting a tree, road, child, animal, etc.
• Meeting other donors, in person or virtually.
• Volunteering or attending an event.

Hook Donors With a Branded Recurring Giving Program

Branded, recurring giving programs offer a simple platform for putting these habit-forming principles into practice.

With a branded giving program, you can create unique donor experiences designed to strengthen their connection to, engagement with and investment in your nonprofit.

Launching such a program takes work, but these steps offer a straightforward process to get you started. If you already have a recurring giving program, look for areas you can improve your existing program.

1. Create a name and brand that aligns with your mission.
2. Articulate the impact of recurring giving — being as specific as possible.
3. Identify perks and rewards (i.e. exclusive content, gamification, etc.)
4. Offer a sense of community through deeper investment and engagement.

Tap Into the Power of Habits to Do More Good

The competition for your donors’ attention is steep. Plenty of for-profits are vying for a share of their attention — and their wallets — with habit-forming products that keep them hooked, engaged and forking over cash. Why not give them an alternative that’s far more meaningful and impactful? 

By offering well-designed habit-forming experiences, you can keep donors coming back by hooking them on the chance to help change the world and create the future that should be.

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.