Basically, the way humans think hasn’t really changed much in a while…. In a long while. New studies are teaching us more about how the brain works. The more you learn about this, the better you will be at digital fundraising because you will understand how donors think and feel.
Pro tip: People think about themselves… a lot.

Here’s what you need to know about digital, and, by digital, I mean web-based technology. Our story begins with the development of the printing press.

The printing press was an incredible advancement in human communication. It drastically increased our one-to-many communication. One person could write a book and it could now be printed thousands of times over. Skip forward a few years to the internet of the 1990s and early 2000s, we’ll call this Internet V1. Internet V1 took the printing press and expanded its impact. Now anyone could publish a book or article online and “publish” it or send it out in an email blast to thousands of people in just minutes!

Now, here’s where you need to pay attention, around 2006, the Internet went through some big changes. We’ll call this Internet V2, and it was more about two-way communication, and using data captured on the internet to customize new output.

Here’s what this means for websites: take Amazon, for example, it shows each user a different home page, based on their existing content, but dynamically customized just for them based on what Amazon knows about their shopping habits. Amazon is delivering a unique one-one experience. Amazon started doing this early, but now this type of personalization can be implemented on most websites and it’s a great way to give donors a better experience.

Another area that this scaled one-one V2 Internet is being used is in Email. Gone are the days where we should expect the tactic of sending out mass e-blasts (one-many) to be effective. With V2 Internet we should be making customized email responses to donors we want to engage. Here’s a simple breakdown to help you imagine this:

You meet a potential donor at a party and get their name and email address, let’s call him Bob. Then you add Bob to your list of potential donors in your amazing emailing or contact tool and indicate that you met them in person. Your amazing tool starts sending Bob an email sequence that you wrote before you ever met Bob. It goes like this:

[2-days later]

If Bob opened the link to the article:

If Bob didn’t click the link: