In his blog, Fundraising.co.uk 9th August 2009, Stephen George talks about Thaler and Sunstein’s book Nudge.
Sue Ryder Care www.suerydercare.org has successfully embraced the philosophy of Thaler and Sunstein's Choice Architecture.
In recent work on their Sue Ryder Care branded online fundraising pages, which are hosted by AltaContact Ltd www.altacontact.co.uk, they ran successful trials to increase the average value of donations and increase the number of event entrants running online fundraising pages.
In a split A/B test donors were presented with different donation scenarios. The donation "nudge" resulted in a 17% increase in the average value of donations.
Craig Linton, Head of Stewardship at Sue Ryder Care, said: “We’re delighted with the results. We saw that on fundraisers's pages in the control the average donation value increased by 17%. We’re delighted. To increase online revenue on our fundraising pages by 17% without any effort or cost is a massive boost.”
Craig explains why Sue Ryder Care came to work with AltaContact and the results. “Having our own branded fundraising pages strengthens our branded message as our fundraisers and donors only see the Sue Ryder Care brand. And, by having the set up for our fundraising pages as part of event registration, it overcomes a known problem for charities that many potential fundraisers are lost when there’s a break between completing the event application and setting up fundraising pages on another website.”
Sue Ryder Care believes that it may have doubled the number of active online fundraisers amongst people registering for events online. “In pure fundraising terms,” Craig continues, “the value of extra online fundraising pages will greatly exceed even the excellent 17% increase in average gift value. This is very important.”
“Going forward, we are working with AltaContact on a number of aspects. We want to get the benefits of a higher percentage of event participants being active fundraisers and, of course, higher value donations to all Sue Ryder Care events,” Craig concludes.
“The benefit of straight through registration to fundraising page is great as Sue Ryder Care has found.” says John Samuel, Managing Director of AltaContact.
"Charities also agree that it's difficult to work out which of the many exciting new ways to raise money on-line will be most successful," John continues.
"Split testing helps with that tremendously, as charities can trial different ideas in a live environment at low cost and with quick results. We certainly believe that Thaler and Sunstein's "Nudge" philosophy is demonstrated to work for charities."
