This week we have a hot topic and guest post from Mike LoPresti of TouchPoints. Mike is our guest speaker for the March 17th Ignited Fundraising Community webinar, Where he’ll talk about how to use your Data so it Truly IS Your Most Valuable Asset.
Who makes the best donor – men or women?
Women are more likely to give and to give more often than men in similar situations. Two fantastic stats from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy shed more light on women donors:
1. Baby-boomer and older women gave 89% more to charity than men their age
2. Women in the top 25% of permanent income gave 156% more than men in that same category
And it’s not just older women or higher income women, virtually at all income levels women give more to charity.
A recent Wall Street Journal article sought to explain why this might be. Their research found “women tend to be more altruistic and empathetic than men, partly because of the way men and women are socialized regarding caring, self-sacrifice and the well-being of others.
Research also suggests men tend to make charitable gifts when an appeal frames the donation as being in the man’s self interest or as a way of maintaining the status quo, while women tend to give to promote social change or help others who are less fortunate.”
So how do you appeal to women donors? One place to start is with messaging.
A U.S. Trust survey says “women are nearly twice as likely as men to say that giving to charity is the most satisfying aspect of having wealth.” Research also suggests married women give more than single-head households and that women influence charitable giving decisions.
For more tips and research on how gender impacts charitable giving, check out this report.
If you want to use this information to help your organization increase its fundraising, click here, and we will help you identify gender, marital status, net-worth, and much more.
Mike LoPresti has been on all sides of the table – public policy in Congress, finance at a Fortune 100 business, CFO of the Adler Planetarium for a decade, and the National Boy Scouts of America Foundation’s STEM Strategy Chair raising $100 million for the organization’s national STEM initiative. Mike took his 40+ years of experience growing nonprofits and co-founded TouchPoints, a technology company that helps nonprofits manage their most important asset – data.
Stay connected to the smart folks at TouchPoints: Twitter and Facebook
