Donating without witnesses… 

…about the Centre Stage Effect – does it really change our donation habits?

I recently read an excellent discussion piece in Third Sector that brought in the idea of the Centre Stage Effect as an example of how people respond to situations requiring a choice. Take choosing wine off a menu, we’re going for one in the middle of the price range (we don’t want the cheap one, the one that’s £5 more will be better). Choose a coffee size (small isn’t enough to get me motivated but the large one is going to have me running around like a loon). Signing up for the gym (lowest one is hardly worth it, the top one is for elite athletes, I want something that shows I’m serious but it’s not so much if when I don’t go).

The Centre Stage Effect is social signalling…

… well a big part of it is – the need to not be seen to be cheap (or god forbid…poor!), whilst conversely you don’t want to be seen as a braggy show off who is profligate with money. At no point does the idea of value for money come into the final choice – the social signalling drowns out anything resembling common sense.

As I was reading the article (and it really was very good), I was struck by a memory of a piece of analysis I did years ago which, if it still holds true, completely bucks the Centre Stage psychology.

I won’t go into the whole piece of analysis, but the interesting bit focused on gift prompts. We found that the highest value of the three on the donation form determined if someone would make a donation. If it was too high it triggered a “you’re taking the piss” response which resulted in no donation being made. If the highest value was deemed acceptable, the amount donated was most likely to be the lowest.

Poor Middle rarely got a look in.

Why does this not follow the rules for the Centre Stage Effect?

I’d really like to re-run this analysis with an organisation that has both traditional paper appeals, online donations AND in person tappy box donations. Now before you all shout at me about audience differences and all that, I know that it wouldn’t be a scientifically robust analysis; people who donate to offline appeals will be different to those who do it online and will be very different to those who make a donation via an in person tappy box. But I’d like someone to humour me and see if there was a difference.

My working hypothesis would be that offline and online supporters will predominantly donate at the lowest value – because there are no witnesses to their action, whereas the onsite donors would donate at the middle value. It’s unlikely anyone could see what was being donated on a tappy box, but the potential viewing of the donation is enough to trigger the Centre Stage Effect.

We could extend it to include street or door fundraising, because both of these should also trigger the Centre Stage Effect.

The only question I’m left with – because in my head I’ve already proved my hypothesis – is how to we trigger a Centre Stage Effect response in donation situations where other people aren’t present?

Answers on a postcard.