Are you wondering how to make your nonprofit appeals more persuasive?
Try this one simple phrase.
Even a penny will help.
This study suggests that when you want assistance (and donations) from people, simply pointing out that even a small offering is acceptable and worthwhile to you is likely to be an effective strategy.
Research assistants from the American Cancer Society went door to door asking people for donations.
In their study they found that for every 100 people they asked, they collected 72 dollars in donations in the “even-a-penny” condition compared to only forty-four dollars without using that phrase.
This research comes from Robert Cialdini’s book Yes!, but it originally comes from Cialdini and Schroeder’s 1976 study, “Increasing compliance by legitimizing paltry contributions: when even a penny helps.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34:599-604.
According to the research, when people were told, “Even a penny will help” they were almost twice as likely to donate to the cause (50% versus 28.6 percent).
But asking for a penny, what’s the deal? Won’t that backfire and make people give less?
Not according to the research! The researchers looked at the size of the donation amounts and happily found that there was no difference in average donation for the control and the experiment group.
What is the next ask you’re going to do? Is it face to face? In email? Via an appeal?
Whatever it is, can you give this phrase a try and let me know how it goes for you?