The Heritage Foundation

How soliciting the donor’s opinion affects the gifts acquired

Experiment ID: #1363

The Heritage Foundation

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution—a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

Experiment Summary

Timeframe: 07/10/2015 - 09/16/2015

The addition of the “gift designation” field ended up increasing the donations acquired by 20.8%. The addition of the field certainly caused additional friction for the donor but the value communicated by this field was more than enough to overcome it.

The key to success in this experiment was the change in approach to the standard gift designation field found with many other donation forms. Instead of asking where the funds should be direct, which is a very organizationally-centric question, we asked the donors how Heritage should be spending its time. This empowered the donors to be able to state their opinion at a high level instead of a worrying about the tactical elements that it takes to implement the aspects.

Additionally, a lift in the number of gifts was achieved in both steps of the process. The donation form makes an initial ask for the Heritage Foundation and then a subsequent ask for their sister organization, Heritage Action for America. The “gift designation” field produced a 12% lift to conversion on the initial form and an 82% lift to the subsequent form which is what resulted in 20.8% increase to the gifts acquired

Research Question

How does a “gift designation” field impact donor conversion and total revenue?

Design

C: No Gift Designation
T1: Gift Designation

Results

 Treatment NameConv. RateRelative DifferenceConfidence
C: No Gift Designation 24.2%
T1: Gift Designation 29.5%21.7% 95.2%

This experiment has a required sample size of 546 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 1,112, and the level of confidence is above 95% the experiment results are valid.

Flux Metrics Affected

The Flux Metrics analyze the three primary metrics that affect revenue (traffic, conversion rate, and average gift). This experiment produced the following results:

    0% increase in traffic
× 21.7% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift

Key Learnings

The Heritage Foundation had the hypothesis that if a donor were able to direct their donation to a specific areas, they would be more likely to give a gift. Historically, Heritage has shied away from using gift designations on their donation form due to the friction it can cause for the donor and the problems associated with restricted funds.

In order to test out this hypothesis, we create a spin on the standard gift designation question. Instead of asking the donor where their funds should be directed, we asked them where they thought Heritage should focus its efforts. We then deployed this experiment on the member renewal page.


Experiment Documented by NextAfter

Question about experiment #1363

If you have any questions about this experiment or would like additional details not discussed above, please feel free to contact them directly.