# Not-for-profit marketing summarized

One unethical aspect within most [not-for-profit organizations (NPOs)](mgmt-npo.md) is that their fundraising model will eventually exploit [shame](mind-feelings-shame.md).

- People are frequently unwilling to donate unless they can [feel](mind-feelings.md) their money going somewhere.
  - This is very difficult to attain in a large organization, since the money must first be received by an administrator and grouped in with everyone else's money.
- However, people are far more [afraid](mind-feelings-fear.md) of being seen as a bad person.
- Therefore, as an organization scales, the organization has to use some form of shame to keep everyone paid.

At the farthest end, the most lucrative NPOs have a very predictable pattern to [influence](power-influence.md) donors:

1. Get a potential donor's full attention.
2. Give something to the donor at first, without asking anything in return.
3. Vaguely ask if they're a "[good](morality.md)" person and willing to help someone in need.
4. A short time later, approach them again and ask them to do something trivial they'd likely do already (e.g., be a safe driver).
5. Repeat the calls to action as long as necessary.
6. When they're at an emotional peak, ask for a significant amount, then ask for something much smaller when they decline.
7. Once they've made a donation, use the above influence tricks as well as giving them stories about how their contributions really matter but are also not sufficient for the upcoming work.
8. Slowly ask for larger increments as they become [habituated](habits.md) to consistently give.
9. Once they have been committed for at least several months to a few years, ask them to ask others as well to give.

Further, many NPOs also find ways to incorporate selfishness into donors' giving to make them feel their selfishness is actually selfless.

- Indicating a type of [religious](religion.md) promise that God will financially bless them for giving
- Promising specific eternal rewards for present sacrifices (e.g., Scientology)
- Giving status-enhancing incentives like a name on a placard or a collectible trinket

This particular mechanism is why many people wish to avoid most large-scale NPOs and many [churches](mgmt-church.md).

- Over time, NPOs will prey on the public's good faith, and can actually create a collectively *worse* contribution to society through that [distrust](mind-trust.md).

The more ethical approach is far more direct, but far more effective:

1. Get a potential donor's full attention.
2. Directly and plainly communicate the present need, as well as the value the organization is adding.
3. Give a specific, precalculated number that indicates how much money is needed.
   - If it affects more than one person, give 1-2 statistics on how many people will be positively affected by it and how.
4. In the same monologue, express other ways the donor can help (e.g., donating food, cleaning up).
5. Do *not* promise any honor or reputation if they donate, but have a plan to give them honor later for their contribution.
   - Context-sensitive, this can be as small as a pizza party, or as significant as a placard on a publicly available bench.

Alternately, you can use a variation of [the Value4Value model](marketing-v4v.md), which is how many [traditional churches](mgmt-church-worship.md) work.

Most of the time, you'll rarely get more than 4% of your audience to ever donate.

- People must be both willing and able.
  - If you're doing anything right, 25% of the people will easily *want* to help, but won't be able to [afford it](money-1_why.md).
- Further, of those who donate, you won't likely see the majority of them donate sufficiently to take care of the organization's expenses.
- To that end, you will be forced to appeal (and reframe the organization's efforts) toward the wealthiest donors.

It is also more tax-advantaged to donate stock directly to an NPO instead of converting it to cash first:

1. There are no realized gains on stock, but there are on the sale, so the donor gets that pre-taxed value deducted on their tax return.
2. NPOs don't have to pay taxes on stock they sell, so they are free to sell that stock later without any tax penalty.
3. To that end, many NPOs advertise stock donation over cash when the donors are particularly wealthy (e.g., Harvard University).