Increasing Donations Through Appeal Types, Exposure, And Donor Characteristics (Faunalytics)

Faunalytics’ experiment investigated whether messages and donor characteristics can increase donations to farmed and companion animals.

Key Findings

Farmed animals received almost as much money as companion animals when donors were given the opportunity to support them: 86% of the amount. This suggests that farmed animal charities may benefit from just getting their message out more. However, it is worth noting that the farmed animal appeals in this study were “diet-neutral”: There was no mention of diet, veganism, or the donors’ behavior. We recommend that donation appeals to a general audience (vs. just vegans) focus on the reduction of animal suffering and not refer to human diet or lifestyle, because it sidesteps the “meat paradox”: the fact that many people care about animals but still eat them. It would likely be hard for those individuals to provide financial support to a cause that explicitly works against their own behavior.
People who have previously donated to any animal charity gave 92% more money to farmed and companion animals than people who had not. Therefore, the more it costs a charity to access each potential donor, the more cost-effective it becomes to tap into this group. For farmed animal charities in particular, previous donors to any animal cause are a valuable target group, as most will likely be new to farmed animal support.
There was no difference in donations whether the appeal used an identifiable victim or statistical victims. This finding is similar to previous research with wild animals (Thomas-Walters & Raihani, 2016). Surprisingly, though, even appeals with no descriptive text at all performed as well as the rest. This finding points to minimal appeals as the most cost-effective messaging strategy for donations, as it suggests that lengthier ads may be unnecessary.