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Donor fatigue is a phenomenon in which people no longer give to charities, although they have donated in the past. There are a number of causes for donor fatigue, including pressure to donate, overstretched budgets, and frustration with mis-managed charities and donation campaigns. Many charities work hard to avoid donor fatigue, since it negatively impacts their collected funds for the year. There are an assortment of ways in which donor fatigue can be avoided by both donors and charities.

The most benign cause of donor fatigue is simply budget exhaustion. Many people who engage in charitable giving set aside a specific budget every year for this purpose. When the budget runs out, they are no longer able to donate.

Alot of donors are shifting from sponsoring HIV prevention to Treatment, sometime over budgeting is also an issue.

Finally, some donors grow frustrated when they donate to charities and nothing seems to happen, or when the charity seems to be really mismanaged. Constant changes in staff, campaign approaches, and management are all signs that a charity may be in trouble, and donors may prefer to send their funds to causes which actually seem to be working. This can be frustrating for nascent charities, which are unable to do any good work because they don't have enough funds.

Charities can take steps to avoid donor fatigue such as launching limited, concise campaigns and demonstrating the work that they do for interested donors. Donors can avoid feeling overstretched by setting a precise budget for charitable donations, and being unafraid to say that they have already given when they are asked for donations which exceed their budgets. It is also a good idea to look up charitable organizations to ensure that they are legitimate if you care about how your donations are used.

 

Do we also shift our directions to suit the donors?

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Comment by Olivia Munoru on May 12, 2011 at 6:35pm

Hi Ukeme,

I really like this post because it raises such an important and age-old question... "do we shift our directions to suit the donors?".

 

My first thought was, well... Of course not!!!

 

But it is not that easy is it.

Years ago I worked in the corporate partnerships team for a big international development agency. We used to grapple with this question every day. On one hand, we had corporates pressuring us to tailor development projects to specifically suit their corporate responsibility programmes and strategic needs. I couldn't tell you how many asked if they could send their staff to "Africa" to "build a school". I often wondered if they were looking for a "blue-wash" opportunity, to use our logo as their ethical stamp on some otherwise less than responsible activities. Those that did go with existing programmes still demanded heavy reporting, and if the outcomes could not be counted.... they didn't count.

On the other hand, these corporates provided considerable amounts of funding and, with a little creativity, we were able to bridge the donor need with our genuine programme priorities. There were many examples of successful partnerships, but each did involve some kind of compromise. But still, I never felt comfortable. Is it fair to compromise community responses, just to meet donor expectations?

 

How can we educate donors to make them sensitive, SALTy donors? Perhaps we need to have a Donor Competence Programme?

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