Collective Intelligence Weighs in On Death, Taxes and Charitable Giving

Guest blog post by Bev Hutney, Director of Innovation and Research for The Stelter Company.

I’m in the business of convincing people to leave large amounts of money to charity—specifically, after their deaths. Money and death—two anxiety-provoking and private topics combined into one! It’s no surprise that our industry struggles to motivate people to think about making these “planned gifts”, which, unlike cash donations, are typically made from assets in a person’s estate and come to fruition after the giver’s passing.

The Stelter Company syndicates planned giving content to more than 1,200 charity websites nationwide. We’ve spent years trying to veil the drier aspects of our topic—estate taxes, trusts, and primarily death—in charming packages in an attempt to make them more palatable to the reader. Until now.

After implementing Baynote’s content recommendations across our sites in early 2009 (here’s an example), we’ve found evidence that donors might have a greater ability to swallow the tough stuff, minus a chaser, than we realized. The data has provided new insights into the minds of potential donors and is helping reshape our marketing approach.

Based on 2009 data gathered from millions of online visitors, here is a peek at some of our highest- and lowest-performing planned giving articles, along with the percentage of readers who found the content engaging (the average rating is 33%).

Highly Engaging
• “Prepare Your Estate for 2010 Tax Law Changes” (88%)
• “The Threefold Benefits of a Trust” (87%)
• “Estate Taxes: Keeping Up With the Changes” (50%)

Not-So-Engaging
• “How to Give Gifts Everyone Can Love” (23%)
• “Tips for Discussing Estate Planning With Your Spouse” (20%)
• “The Perfect Present for Mom and Dad” (18%)

We were a bit surprised by readers’ appetites for unapologetic, straightforward content, and also relieved that perhaps our writers needn’t worry so much about trying to cheer up dry topics. Aside from mission-related stories, which outrank all others 10 to 1, readers pay most attention to articles on taxes and trusts. Attempts to oversell or inject charitable giving articles with excess sentiment fall flat. And, by the way, further investigation revealed that any article with the word “spouse” in the title exhibited a below-average usefulness ranking. Hmmm….
Collective Intelligence is allowing The Stelter Company to adapt to donors changing interests and personalize content in real time, resulting in a better customer experience around difficult subject matter.  For more on our story, check out the case study.