Securing funds for humanitarian causes
Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) Success Story
The Challenge
Doctors Without Borders (DWB), is the name by which Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is known in the USA. DWB is one of the world’s leading humanitarian agencies. It provides specialist medical teams – doctors, nurses, surgeons, anaesthetists, health workers – to work in the most challenging situations imaginable. At any time DWB might have teams working with rural villagers in Congo to treat and prevent the spread of Ebola, in Yemen operating on women and children injured in the civil war, and in Syria providing essential healthcare to refugees living in cramped unhygienic conditions.
DWB’s work in remote places and their willingness to identify those responsible for suffering means they are not always an easy cause to sell to comfortable Western populations. Concerned any government money would compromise their independence, they are entirely dependent on the goodwill of private individuals and foundations. =mc consulting decisionscience team is proud to have worked on a number of strategies and campaigns for MSF in Switzerland, France, Mexico, Ireland, and of course in USA.
DWB approached =mc to help and design set up a series of online experiments exploring how decision science might help improve giving from prospects and supporters.
What We Did
=mc worked with the brilliant Director of Development, Thomas Kurmann, to prepare a series of online experiments to investigate the impact of various decision science techniques, including:
- Reducing the choice of gift options from five to three – this lessened the cognitive load and increased higher commitment to one of the options.
- Creating greater salience for one donation choice by changing colour and including text and pictures to make it more prominent.
- Including an online counter showing progress towards a specific daily goal – to show how individual gifts were helping.
- Normalising key gift levels by showing that many existing supporters had given a similar level donation.
We also looked at the differences in gift levels at different times of day and across different platforms – especially contrasting mobile and laptop.
The Impact
Some of the experiments succeeded remarkably well producing significantly higher returns than normal. Others seemed to make little difference. It’s important to stress that it’s in the nature of experiments that you are testing a hypothesis to discover what might work and what might not.
Following the overall success of the project =mc was contracted to work on a global case for support aimed at major donors, and to coach street fundraising teams to increase their success rate – and therefore income for the charity. For more on the street fundraising project see this blog.
Next Steps?
Have a similar challenge or want to explore a project?
Contact Bernard Ross, Director.
bernardross@mc.consulting
+44 7976 280314
More of our Success Stories
Persuading shoppers to be more caring
In recent years foodbanks have become a common phenomenon in towns and cities across the UK as poverty becomes a sad part of everyday life. Many are locally run and managed some by churches, some by charities, some by local authorities.
=mc consulting decisionscience team was asked by the UK’s largest coordination agency, The Trussell Trust, to help them explore how to raise more funds using decision science techniques.
Securing funds for humanitarian causes
Doctors Without Borders (DWB), is the name by which Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is known in the USA. DWB is one of the world’s leading humanitarian agencies. It provides specialist medical teams – doctors, nurses, surgeons, anaesthetists, health workers – to work in the most challenging situations imaginable. DWB approached the =mc consulting decisionscience team for help to design set up a series of online experiments exploring how decision science might help improve giving from prospects and supporters.
Bringing science to an Olympic team
The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado with sport-specific associations spread throughout the 50 states.
They approached the =mc consulting decisionscience team to increase support to underfunded sports – both financial and in terms of participation.
Better behaviour through decision science
ISSA, the International Step-by-Step Association, is based in Holland and works across Europe and Central Asia. It is an association of agencies committed to protecting and developing the interests of early years children. Always on the lookout for new ways to improve these systems, ISSA asked us to help them explore the potential of decision science to help them achieve their goals.
Encouraging more visitors to do more
Bristol Museums and Arts Galleries is one of the UK’s leading cultural service. It comprises six venues throughout Bristol, each with a different focus and designed to address a specific audience. The most contemporary of the venues is M-shed.
=mc consulting decisionscience team was asked to focus on M-shed and advise on how to increase sales in the museum shop, which should have been a key source of earned income.
Engaging supporters more in conservation
Including the Highland Wildlife Park, RZSS Edinburgh Zoo is one of Europe’s foremost wildlife conservation agencies and one of Scotland’s leading visitor attractions. It also has onsite projects in Africa and undertakes research worldwide.
=mc consulting decisionscience team were hired to improve the way visitors engaged with the animals and supported the wider conservation work of the Zoo.
