Boosting Donations Through Self-expressive Choices | Jonah Berger

Can Encouraging Self-expression Boost Charitable Donations?

Dan Loney: Charitable giving can have a variety of reasons behind it, but research by author and Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger says that when there are dueling preferences at play, there’s a potential for a higher level of pro-social giving. Jonah joins us right now to discuss his work.

Jonah Berger: Nonprofits, and even individuals, often ask others for help. You say, “Hey, will you donate money? Will you donate time? Please help us out.” Obviously, helping these organizations, helping these causes is really important, but people don’t always do it. So, one question we had is, could there be a way to encourage individuals to give more, whether it’s donating their time or their money.

We were inspired by something that you may have seen in your own life a lot more recently, at least in the past five years or so, which is walk into a coffee shop and rather than simply asking you for tips if the barista did a good job, the coffee shop might say, “Hey, vote with your tips. Do you like Star Wars or Star Trek? Do you like dogs or cats? Which ice cream do you like better: vanilla or chocolate?”

While that situation can seem a little trivial, a little bit silly, we wondered if similar approaches might be helpful to getting people to donate. What these approaches do is they don’t only ask people money, they give people an opportunity to express their preferences. You’re not just asking me to pay you for doing a good job, but you’re asking me which thing I like better. We were wondering, would people be more likely to donate, to give, to do things, if doing those things was an opportunity to express their preferences to others and the world more generally?

Loney: By having that component of self-expression, it probably builds a connection between the two elements that are in the transaction.

Berger: Certainly. And I think the bigger idea is, people love expressing themselves, right? Think about how much money people spend on cars and clothes and houses and other things that allow them to express their identity. Similarly, people love talking about their preferences. People love talking about where they went on vacation, or what they bought, or things that they like. People have an ingrained value of self-expression. And what our research shows is that people actually would be willing to pay to get this opportunity to self-express.

When asking people for donations, for example, rather than just asking them to give money, ask them to give money in a way that gives them a chance to express their preferences. Vote by donating for this cause or that cause, or even for one specific cause, vote with your preferences. Do you like this thing better, or that? It increases people’s likelihood of donation and increases the amount donated overall.

Loney: How does this impact how an organization has to think about the process of trying to draw out donations from the public? Is it different for a group rather than an individual?

Berger: I think as an organization, we’re often trying to get people to give more. To give more time, to give more effort, to give more resources. But it’s challenging to get people to do that. The simple takeaway from this research is that if you’re a nonprofit trying to increase donations, asking people to donate and express their preferences, giving them this preference duel as a way of doing it, is a way to increase donations. And sure, you can ask them about things that are related to your cause. If I’m a World Wildlife Fund, for example, which animal do you like better is a question certainly relevant to my cause. But you can also ask things that aren’t necessarily relevant to your cause. You can ask people which baseball team they prefer, or which sport they like better, which season they prefer. People like expressing themselves, and so giving them opportunities to do so can increase and create benefits for companies and organizations.

How Identity Plays a Role in Pro-social Behavior

Loney: You mentioned in the research about identity playing an important role in developing these pro-social behaviors as well. How does that occur?

Berger: It’s exactly what we’re talking about. People like having particular identities, but they also like expressing those identities. They like both express them to others, signaling those identities — I want to show you that I’m a sports fan or that I’m knowledgeable about a particular topic. But even for themselves, even if no one else is going to see it, I like expressing myself because it helps me understand and express who I am.

Identity plays a big role here. If we’re not giving people an opportunity to express something that connects to their identity, it’s probably not going to work. If we give people a dueling preference between two things they don’t care about, I don’t know, which type of mulch do you like better? Most people don’t care about mulch. I’m sure some people do, but most people don’t. They’re probably not going to vote. They’re probably not going to be more likely to donate, because it doesn’t really have anything to do with them. It doesn’t touch on their identity.

But if we ask them a question that touches on their identity or something they care about: Which political candidate do you like? Which sports team do you prefer? Are you a cat person or a dog person? All those are things that people care about more, that connect to their identities, and so they’re more likely to pay to express those preferences.

Loney: When you’re doing the field test on something like tipping, I guess it really is trying to find the best approach to draw a response from the consumer.

Berger: Certainly. If we’re in Philadelphia, for example, which is your favorite team? The Eagles are the 76ers? But if we’re down in North Carolina, it’s do you like Duke or UNC? When we’re out in California, maybe it’s you’re a Cal fan or a Berkeley fan or a Stanford fan. It’s understanding your audience and the things they care about and that are important to them, and creating these opportunities to make choices that allow them to express their identity.

When we think about donations, there are two questions. Are people going to donate at all? And how much are they going to going to donate? It’s important to encourage both of those things to occur. Am I suggesting that for huge gifts, million-dollar gifts, giving people the opportunity to express their preference is going to play a big role? Probably not. Someone who’s giving $1 million to a cause is going to care a lot about the cause, and they need a lot of time to think about it. But for smaller donations, whether it’s tips to the barista, or whether it’s supporting a social cause that we care about, if I’m on the fence about whether to donate or not, or I’m trying to understand how much to donate, connecting it to my identity and giving me an opportunity to express that identity, is going to make me more likely to donate.

Loney: What does this research mean for charitable giving in the longer term?

Berger: I think with any strategy, you have to be a little careful. If it’s overused, if it’s too familiar, where it feels like it’s not authentic, it’s not going to work. If every single nonprofit starts using this particular type of approach, its effectiveness may die out. That said, at least in the short term, given that not everybody’s using this, it can be a great way to boost things, at least into the near and immediate future.

Loney: Would you expect that there would be some nuanced difference in how individuals in different organizations or different groups would approach this?

Berger: Oh, certainly. As we talked about, it’s got to be something that relates to my identity. It’s got to be something that I care about. When applying this strategy, I need to think about, who is my audience? What do they care about? And how can I pick a preference or a choice that is relevant to that?