When was the last time you saw a bake sale or lemonade stand? Chances are it has been a while. Over the past 10 years the practice has largely disappeared. I’m sure you’ll see the occasional 7 year old squeezing fruit, but even at a young age, the concept of a lemonade stand doesn’t represent what it once did: the fastest way to raise money for a good cause. These days, your stand is even expected to accept Bitcoin.
It’s why you would see college clubs, church groups, and high students frequently using pop events every time the budget was running low. Today our quick fundraising tactics have transitioned to crowdfunding, perks, and most recently #hashtags thanks to organizations like GoodWorld. What could a bake sale and a crowdfunding campaign have in common? At their core they follow the same key tenants: Simplicity, Satisfaction, and Connection.
Simplicity
Bakesales have been a staple of small-scale fundraising for years. Their effectiveness is in large part due to the simplicity of the process. Give your extra change or a spare dollar and get a delicious homemade treat as a result. The majority of people collect pocket change, or have an extra dollar in their wallet, which makes it extremely easy to give. A bake sale provides an easy way to give, packaged in a speedy transaction. It allows people to capture that warm feeling from giving without having to think for more than a second. If the transaction were more substantial or arduous it would be far less successful.
As technology and social media has progressed it has created an even more simplistic system to give. Recently GoodWorld unveiled a system in which one could give to a social cause or charity with simply tweeting or posting #donate $XX.XX on a charities social media pages. After a minute long 1-time set up users can instantaneously make micro contributions to relevant organizations. This new frontier of giving captures the same elements of donor psychology as bake sales by allowing individuals to make instant small contributions to causes that matter to them.
Satisfaction
What is more universal than a homemade baked treat or a refreshing glass of lemonade in the summer? Regardless of culture or preferences bake sales provide givers with a small satisfying treat that they can feel good about. It sounds minor but a baked good provides the donor with the mental satisfaction of knowing they did something good by rewarding them for their efforts. After all people love to be recognized especially when they give.
With the mechanisms of online giving and crowdfunding, people still need this feeling of satisfaction and knowing they did something good. It’s why so many crowdfunding campaigns have t-shirts and other “swag” for those who give. T-shirts, stickers, photos, etc. are all items that a donor can hold on too to make them feel good about giving. Social media shout outs and website listings work well as donor perks because it gives those who give the recognition they desire in an even more permanent way. As giving continues to evolve, one constantly will be in creating that donor satisfaction that is crucial to build a donor pool and support.
Connection
What makes people give? A connection to a cause or an individual involved with a cause. For lemonade stands everyone can relate to the kid trying to make a few extra bucks for ice cream or trading cards. For bake sales the narrative is a little different as friendly faces and warm homemade food creates an instant connection between the donor and the donee. Food comprises an enormous part of the human existence and bakesales manage to capture its very essence to draw people to a cause or organization.
On the individual level, the best canvassers are ones who are able to establish personal connections with individuals in short periods of times. People give to others as often as they give to causes. In my own fundraising experience I’ve often found that people are more willing to give when they have a person in their life that represents or cares about a cause. Today crowdfunding campaigns and other donor solicitation tools are optimized to draw people in immediately.
Each major platform from Kickstarter and Indiegogo to GoFundMe and CrowdRise, is designed to draw in a unique audience based on their users and projects. Each platform has the same technology; the defining factor is the users they are able to create a connection with. After all the human attention span is extremely limited and people are typically cautious with their time. The ideal is now that within 15-30 seconds of reaching your campaign a viewer is already able to feel a connection to your work. Much like bake sales and lemonade stands, social media and fundraising create the pathways to establish connections between potential donors and social causes.
Bake sales, lemonade stands, crowdfunding, and hashtags are not all encompassing, however, the trends they highlight are reflected in the “giving industry” as a whole. The methods through which people give their resources are constantly changing however; the key tenants of what draws people to give will continue to remain constant. In the future the giving cycle will continue to shrink until the process until it takes a few seconds for a donor to connect with a cause, give, and receive that warm feeling of satisfaction.
In much the same way that content is constantly streamlined the process of giving will continue to be streamlined to require the bare minimum thought and energy while provided that same gratification. In some ways this is good as it allows for causes to raise money quickly and from more and more sources. However, the downside is less and less intention with our giving. There will be fewer people that truly connect and relate to a cause and more that simply feel compelled to give or want to capture that gratification. As giving becomes a few phone clicks or fingerprint scanning its crucial to ensure that people truly think about giving and the role these causes play in they’re everyday lives before it becomes a reflex.