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How can the smaller children’s charities disrupt a habitual Christmas giving tradition?

November 13, 2013

How can the smaller children’s charities disrupt a habitual Christmas giving tradition?

It is that time of year when charities are scrambling for your share of wallet, hoping to benefit from the generosity and giving spirit of the festive season. After all, we should be thinking about others as we creep towards the Christmas holiday period.

Anyone who has started their Christmas shopping would have seen Kmart’s Wishing Tree Appeal in collaboration with the Salvos or Operation Santa (Target & The Uniting Church).  Cleverly these charities are riding on mums’ shopping habits to drive donations.

In October 2013, we conducted a nationally representative study with 1000 people over 18, looking at what people spend on charities.  On average, Australians spend $264 per person on donations a year and what is interesting is that just over half of that (53%) is going to children’s charities.

The bigger charities are grabbing the most ‘awareness’ – World Vision, then Make a Wish, Starlight, Unicef and The Smith Family are in the top 5 most known Children’s charities.

We know that giving to children’s charities is habitual – 47% of people who give are in a habit with their chosen charity.  This means that they give unconsciously to the same charities without considering any alternatives, which is great news for these top charities.

But how can a smaller more challenger type charity disrupt the habit of the bigger organisations?

Our research Consumers buy on autopilot:  What does that mean for your brand tells us that new cues and triggers are needed to disrupt a current habit.  Think Tontine’s pillows ‘out of stamp’ campaign or Rafferty’s Garden’s new pack and organic proposition.

When we probed on what would encourage people to spend more money they told us they wanted:

  1. More information about where their money is going
  2. Case studies that detail how the money is helping different people and their community
  3. Less direct contact from the charity and more contact with the recipients of the donations
  4. Easier process for making donations that can be done in their own time

Consistent with our findings, Trendwatching.com highlight the trend Fuzzynomics where consumers want more control over what happens to their money. Clever online portals are enabling givers to communicate directly with the people receiving their donations.

Catapult

 

Catapult is an online crowdfunding platform connecting donors to projects that advance the lives of girls and women around the world.  They do a great job of showing people want happens to their contributions.  By choosing a particular project of interest, donors can connect with the people benefiting from the donation.

Taking the things that consumers want and matching them with some of the new emerging trends could be the strategy that a smaller charity could work on to find the cues and triggers unique to them that will disrupt a well entrenched charity habit.

Maybe it’s time that the charities started delivering to the people who donate?


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