When you send out a fundraising campaign, do you ever wonder who in the household receiving it actually makes the decision about whether to give? In married or cohabiting households, which partner do you have in mind as making the charitable giving decisions?
Is it the man or the woman? Is it a joint decision? Does each partner decide separately without communicating about it? Maybe the size of the gift determines how this plays out. Or maybe it matters which type of charity the gift is for.
A recent study from the IUPUI Women’s Philanthropy Institute explored these questions, and found some interesting insights.
As a fundraiser who understands the value of data, you’ll be able to use the findings from this study to improve your communication with donors and engage with each of them in more personal ways. That leads to stronger relationships and greater lifetime value, the most meaningful fundraising metric of all the ones you can glean from the Fundraising Report Card.
Study Methodology
First, a brief look at the study.
Titled ‘How Households Make Giving Decisions,’ the study relied on survey data and analysis carried out in 2020. The study report explains in great detail who was in the sample including type of household, income, net worth, and various other demographic factors.
Specifically, it surveyed 3499 people in May 2020 and focused only on married or cohabiting couples. Of those surveyed, 2115 fit this description. And of those, 1693 reported making at least one donation to charity the previous year.
The study broke down its subjects into four categories based on their responses about who makes giving decisions in their households:
- Man decides
- Woman decides
- Jointly decide
- Separately decide
‘Separately’ means each partner makes their own decisions without consulting the other. This could mean both partners give on their own, or that only one does.
Who in the Household Makes the Decision to Give?
As several other studies have shown, the vast majority of households make giving decisions jointly. In this study, that figure came out at 61%. After that, women make the decision in 15% of households, followed by men at 12% and separately deciding at 11%.
Interestingly, a similar study from 20 years ago reported over 73% of households making giving decisions jointly. So in one generation, the number with either men or woman making the decisions has increased about threefold.
The one exception to all this is high net worth households. There, the man made giving decisions in 19% of households, and the woman made them in just 6%. Joint decisions again dominated at 50%.
So while decision-making usually happens jointly, women tend to make giving decisions a bit more than men except for wealthy households.
The study also found a few surprises.
Households most likely to make joint decisions included older households and those with children under 18 in the home. But younger couples and religious couples were more likely for the man to make giving decisions. And when the couple featured an educational gap, whichever partner had the greater education was more likely to make the household giving decisions.
This means, most households where women make giving decisions tend to be ones where the woman has more education than the man.
Households where giving decisions are made separately also tend to be younger. But, they also include households with no children under 18, and non-religious households.
Do Households Agree on Giving Amounts and Recipients?
In general, there appears to be a high level of harmony within households when it comes to giving decisions. About 75% of households reported general agreement about how much to give, and which organizations should receive their gifts.
Interestingly, among those who are comfortable giving without telling their partner, men are willing to give three times as much as women ($901 to $311).
As for who receives their gifts, woman-deciding households tend to give more toward health, education, human services, youth and family, and international causes.
Man-deciding households lean toward adult recreation, religion, education, and “other” causes.
So other than education, there are some clear differences in preference – when one partner makes the giving decisions.
How Much Does Each Type of Household Give?
The study found big differences in how much each type of household gives. Here’s the breakdown:
- Man makes giving decisions – $1,981 per year
- Woman makes giving decisions – $1,561 per year
- Joint giving decisions – $1,886 per year
- Separate decisions – $1,015 per year
Other studies have found a few variations on this.
For example, couples who decide jointly tend to give quite a bit more than households where only one person decides, or that give separately. Couple-driven households give 3.4% of their income, whereas households where one person decides give only 2.9%.
That’s a big difference in actual dollars given. It thus behooves a fundraiser to know the giving process of their donors – especially major donors. These are all just averages of course, but your jointly deciding households will tend to give more.
That this study found man-deciding households giving the most could be the result of a few high net worth households, since those tend to make decisions through the man, as seen previously.
And another study referenced in this one found that some households use more than one approach depending on the size of the gift. Larger gifts, planned gifts, and recurring gifts are often joint decisions, but smaller gifts and impulse gifts are more often individual choices.
How Often Do Households Talk about Giving?
How is the communication going among households with regard to giving? As it turns out, most couples do actually talk about this.
30% of households discuss their giving at least once a month. And 74% talk about it at least a couple times per year. Only 15% said they never talk about giving with other members of their household.
For fundraisers, this means nearly all your donors who are part of a couple will talk to their partner about their decision to give. It is very rarely done without at least some consultation or discussion.
Giving is a household decision. And for most couples, no matter who actually makes the decision to give, there will be some discussion about it at least a couple times per year.
How Do They Make the Decision?
The study describes three methods for how couples make their giving decisions.
Competitive bargaining
Here, whichever partner has more resources – such as income or education – tends to be the ultimate decider of how much to give and which organizations should receive it. There may be some discussion, but the person with more ‘skin in the game’ or perhaps knowledge of the issues ends up making the final decision.
Cooperative bargaining
This approach reflects couples who share similar preferences, beliefs, and interests with regard to money and generosity. It’s probably one of the things that cemented their attraction to each other. These couples have little conflict over spending, and that includes decisions to give.
Even if one partner has higher income or more education, the giving decisions will not be dominated by them because both partners share common values and priorities.
Division of labor approach
A third approach doesn’t consider income, education, or values and preferences. In this type of household, giving is just one of many tasks, and each partner takes care of various items. In these households, one partner probably handles most of the finances, and giving is one financial decision they make.
As a hypothetical example, one partner’s task list might include cooking, garbage, and driving the kids around. And the other’s tasks might include washing dishes, home repair, and finances – including giving.
How Should Fundraisers Respond to This Data?
What should you do with all this information and data? There is one primary takeaway that the Fundraising Report Card (and our parent company MarketSmart) see in this study.
And that is this:
Each household is unique. Each household makes giving decisions in their own way. Some are joint. Some are led by the man or the woman. Some make giving decisions separately.
Who they give to, how much they give, why, and how those decisions are discussed and made varies from house to house. While there are overall trends, if you’re engaging with a particular donor, you have no way of knowing which type of household they are.
The only way to know is to ask.
Why Ask
You should ask because how you communicate with each household can be personalized based on their response.
For example, in one household, you might learn the woman makes most of the giving decisions but discusses it with her husband using the competitive bargaining approach. With that in mind, you can speak directly to her. You can focus on her values, interests, desires, and pursuits as they relate to giving.
But in another household that makes joint giving decisions using cooperative bargaining, you would aspire to communicate with them as a couple. You’d learn both their names, their histories, their occupations, and what matters to them. You’d be comfortable speaking to either one of them if you caught them on the phone.
How to Ask
To find out which type of household you’re dealing with, you can find out using personalized, responsive surveys. With MarketSmart, our AI-driven software creates feedback loops for each donor in your system. Using this system, you’re able to automate cultivation and use it to identify who your potential major donors are, and eventually convert them into actual major donors.
Each donor receives their own customized communication. No two people hear the same thing or get it in the same timing.
And when you know which type of household you’re working with, that knowledge gets incorporated into the communication they receive.
This approach ensures your fundraising communications will always be relevant, engaging, and personalized. And that makes the donor feel heard, valued, and understood, which increases their chances of them becoming a loyal and generous donor.
