My friend roped me into collecting for the Blind Association Guide Dog Puppy Appeal on Sunday. Aside from it being an awesome charity, the idea sparked my curiosity about how you can make it MORE likely for people to give their money to a cause that may never affect them.

The Situation

We were located outside a supermarket on the edge of the central city from 10am until lunchtime. Most people were pretty relaxed, a lot of parents and grandparents brought their kids along and most people were just popping in to grab one or two items for lunch (There was also a massive amount who DIDN’T use reusable bags).

When we stood their holding buckets and saying nothing, most people simply avoided eye contact and made their way past. This was not good enough for us who had replaced a small, seriously cute child and his dog, who were both trained posers and could melt even the hardest heart. The competitive spirit clicked in and we made it our mission to beat their total collection amount.

Tactic One: Get A Puppy

We figured if we were collecting for the training of guide dog puppies, it would be better if we actually HAD a puppy. This would help us in 2 ways:

• People like puppies and want to pat them. When they do, they will feel guilty about not giving us money, and will therefore pay up
• Puppies are what the money is for and what makes this charity different so should be played up as much as possible

So we scored ourselves a puppy off a nice man who was going into the supermarket and our collection rate rose.

Then a real life guide dog puppy walker arrived with her dog and things went crazy for a while.

Lesson 1: Cute things sell stuff.
lesson 1a: Play up to your point of difference.

Tactic two: Say Hello

i was dead against this and the first time Verity tried it she was ignored. The second time, I was halfway through laughing at her and looked up to notice her victim digging into his pockets.

It was simply incredible how people kind of figure if they can just get past you, they escape you… But as soon as they say hi, they become involved and feel awful for not donating.

We progressed this tactic forward to making jokes and friendly banter, because that’s the kind of people we are… And at several points, we had quite a large crowd of people giving. We never harrassed people or were anything but friendly, we never actively made people feel bad for not donating, but by being hilarious (as we are), we managed to find their weak spot.

My personal favorite was when a man walked out with a case full of wine and claimed he had no money, so I said ‘no worries, we’ll take a bottle of wine instead’. He laughed then 2 minutes later came running back with cash he’d found in his car.

Lesson 2 Engage people, create a personal connection.

Tactic three: Make noise

At one stage someone I know from work came by and we started chatting. By this stage, the dogs had departed but we had three people and I think our sheer numbers drew attention to us. Nicola was a tad concerned that she was being mistaken for a dog because our hit rate shot through the roof when she arrived, but since no one wanted to pat her, I have to conclude it was just because we made more impact.

I also wonder if maybe it’s that whole thing of when you get one person to buy, it makes other people more likely to buy and since no one knew that Nicola knew us, they may have mistaken her for being absurdly interested in the cause which made them more interested.

Lesson three The more the merrier

Tactic four: Giveaways

Nicola very nicely gave us both a box of Smarties. While Verity scoffed hers, I used mine to bribe small children who are as drawn to lollies as they are to puppies. Men were another key group who got excited about the Smarties. We are thinking next year we will make ‘Puppy Dogs’ and have a sausage sizzle like event with mini hot dogs (Hense the uber clever marketing line of ‘Puppy Dogs’).

Lesson four Unless you are under the age of 2, stickers aren’t that cool a giveaway.

Tactic five: Have fun

Verity and I tend to use any excuse for a gossip session, and 2 hours of collecting, meant two hours of talking. Because we had so much fun with it and get way over excited about puppies ourselves, I do believe that our enthusiasm caught on. I am sure of this because the girl who replaced us was gone 20 minutes after we left, which makes me think she was getting nothing.

I hate seeing dull collectors on the side of the road, I hate seeing those really pesky ones who surround you, but if someone looks like they are having a good time and giving is a positive thing that makes you feel good, not a negative thing that you just feel guilty about, you are more likely to do it.

lesson five Positive reinforcement is better than guilt tripping.