The Donor Decision-Making Process (DDMP) is the foundation of our Strategic Fundraising Model, which we use in place of the traditional fundraising model. You can learn more about why traditional approaches don’t work and the Strategic Fundraising model here.
The DDMP has five progressive steps, or stages, through which every donor passes before a final decision to contribute is made. Each stage is experienced by every donor, no matter how large or how small the donation.
For smaller gifts, donors experience these five stages of the DDMP rather quickly—sometimes in a matter of minutes or even seconds. For larger donations (and the size of every donation is relative, so $100 may be a “large” donation to some people, but a “small” donation to others), the donor still goes through each of these five stages, but sometimes it takes days, months, or even years to go through a particular stage.
Think of the five stages as steps leading to the ultimate decision to donate. The five stages are Awareness, Curiosity, Assessment, Trial, and Donation.
The Strategic Fundraising Model is about donor engagement, donor loyalty, and donor involvement, and these five stages work in stride with that process. Every donor should be guided through each of these stages, and it’s the fundraiser’s job to successfully help them accomplish each one to secure donations.
The First Stage: Awareness
In this stage, donors are aware of your organization or your cause. They have heard about you through a friend, or have driven by your office or other location, or have read about you online or in the newspaper. They usually know your name—or something close to it—but nothing else.
They may not be aware of what you actually do, but they may have a perception or a personal understanding of your product or service.
In the Awareness stage, potential donors are already developing an opinion about your organization, mission, reputation, and brand. Awareness is the first stage because donors are not able to give unless they first are aware of the organization or the cause. They cannot give to an organization they have never heard of, even when that donation is very small and the decision to give is made within minutes.
The Second Stage: Curiosity
Once a potential donor is aware of an organization, she then begins to develop some level of curiosity about it.
“I wonder how long that museum has been there,” the drive-by potential donor may wonder.
Or, “How many of that shelter’s animals are adopted out, and how many are euthanized?” the same donor may consider.
Curiosity is critical in the DDMP because it means the potential donor is developing an interest in the organization or the cause. A person who is curious often begins to seek more information, and the degree to which new information is sought is based upon the degree to which interest is piqued.
During the Curiosity stage, potential donors ask questions, either in their own minds or spoken to others, such as these:
- How long has the organization been in existence?
- What does that organization do?
- Who does it serve?
- How much does it cost?
- What does it accomplish?
- Why is this organization located here? Why not locating elsewhere?
- Who runs that organization?
- Is this organization a benefit to our community?
- Does this organization make a difference?
- Does this organization utilize volunteers, or is everything done by staff?
The Third Stage: Assessment
In this stage, the questions that were asked in the Curiosity stage have been answered—and answered in a way the potential donor is satisfied with. Because of this, the potential donor begins to seek even more information about the organization or the cause, and simultaneously begins to mentally apply her own personal situation to the decision of giving.
For example, a potential animal shelter donor who is considering adopting a dog may begin to wonder what it would be like to visit the shelter. She would ask herself what the adoption process would be like and even starts to consider making a donation. The donor begins to mentally apply the act of donating to the shelter to her own circumstances. She talks with others, possibly even shelter staff or volunteers, about the possibility of donating.
The Fourth Stage: Trial
Now, the potential donor actually tests the experience of donating to the organization. She may donate only once, and usually on a small scale. She wants to see what it feels like to actually donate to this organization.
Questions she is seeking answers to include:
- How easy was it to donate?
- How was my donation used by the organization?
- Was I properly thanked for my donation?
- Was the thank you I received provided in a timely manner?
- Am I being further solicited for additional donations? If so, are those solicitations appropriate in their timing and in the amount asked for?
If the donor has a negative experience while trying out the donation process, all will be in vain. The efforts to build awareness, satisfy curiosity, and meet the expectations of the donor’s assessment will have come to naught if the testing itself does not go as well as we had hoped.
This means the organization’s processes must be so slick, so seamless, so simple and so satisfying that the donor has no chance of having anything but a good—no, a great—experience. The entire system must be thought through and regularly assessed and improved upon. It must surpass donor expectations in every way.
Oh yes—the small, one-time donation will be received. But unless the donor test is passed, the larger, ongoing donations will be lost.
The Fifth Stage: Donation
Finally, once awareness has been established, curiosity piqued, assessment satisfied, and trial succeeded, the donor becomes committed for a period of time. This is the time to fully engage the potential donor in order to receive larger and more frequent gifts.
Again: these five steps are the stages through which every donor passes. A donor may be “stuck” on one stage or another for a period of time—even months or years. But helping the donor move from one step to the next is the goal of the Donor Engagement Model and the work of the fundraiser.
Learn more about strategic fundraising and how you can implement it at your organization with our Strategic Fundraising ebook series.