Effective fundraising starts with identity. Compelling fundraising story connects the donation story with the donor’s story. When does a story become the donor’s story? When the donor identifies with its characters and values.

In fundraising, identifying with others is powerful. It’s what turns “them” into “us.” It’s what turns “giving” into “sharing.” A donor identifies with others for two reasons:

  1. I am like them.

  2. I am with them.

The first reflects subjective similarity; the second, alliances. Both are rooted in natural origins.

Natural origins of giving: I am like them

Altruism means I give away something valuable to help another. Why would natural selection lead to this behavior? The first explanation is similarity: I am like them. This is the simple math from Hamilton.27 I give if

My Cost < (Their Benefit X Our Similarity).

This approach is simple. Most altruism in animals matches this model.

Natural origins of giving: I am with them

But what if we’re not related? How could natural selection lead to altruism? I give up something valuable. It helps you, but it costs me. And you are not at all like me. In natural selection, this seems like a bad idea.

But now let’s add a wrinkle. Suppose our world becomes better if we both act this way. This changes things. Altruism is still costly. But in the long run, it could benefit me. It could also benefit others similar to me. This opens the possibility for alliances. This opens the possibility for reciprocal altruism.

Let’s play a game

We have a dilemma. Altruism costs the donor. But if everyone does it, everyone is better off. (Otherwise, altruism outside the family would never make sense.)

Biologists model this dilemma with a game.28 Let’s start with two players. My choice is this. I keep everything and get a larger reward. Or I give and get a smaller reward.

That’s an easy choice. The answer is simple: Don’t give. Now suppose my gift helps the other player more than it costs me. The answer is still simple: Don’t give. With an unrelated player, changing the payoff doesn’t matter.

Adding a new twist changes the game. Now, the other player also faces the same choice. If we both give, we both become better off. A simple trade now makes sense.

But a new problem changes the game once more. Suppose each must choose before knowing what the other player will do.

Here’s an example. Both players face these payoffs:

They don’t give They give
I give I get 0 points; they get 3 We each get 2 points
I don’t give We each get 1 point I get 3 points; they get 0

If we both give, we both win. (We each get 2 points. The total is 4 points.) If I give and they don’t, they win big, and I lose big. (I get 0 points. They get 3 points. The total is 3 points.) If neither gives, we both lose. (We each get 1 point. The total is only 2 points.)

This simple game captures the core issue.29 Reciprocal altruism is possible. It is beneficial. But it requires an alliance. It requires trust. Why? Because I must act before I know what the other player will do.

The little game that could

This little game is powerful. Biologists use it to model reciprocal altruism across the natural world.30 Research finds reciprocal altruism in

It arises in “fungi, plants, fish, birds, rats, and primates.”38 Giving is natural. Specifically, reciprocal giving is natural. The little game is powerful because it captures the underlying, primal donation decision.

But it can also model modern giving. Consider this situation. Suppose my neighborhood is raising money to refurbish its park. Four different outcomes match those in the game.

  1. Everyone gives a lot. The park will be beautiful. Property values will go way up. Everyone will win.

  2. I don’t give, but everyone else still does. I come out even further ahead. Property values still go up, but it costs me nothing.

  3. I give big, but others don’t. I lose. It will cost me a lot, but improvements will be limited. Property values won’t go up much.

  4. Finally, if nobody gives, nobody benefits. Property values won’t change.

These four outcomes match the game. The game models my modern donation tradeoffs. It turns out this little game is quite flexible. We’ll see that, with small variations, it can model

Winning strategies

It starts with a simple choice. Give or don’t. But with many rounds and many players, the game gets complicated. Giving costs. Without reciprocity, it’s never repaid. So, winning means predicting reciprocity. That’s tricky. But it starts with an unbreakable natural law. It starts with this:

Giving must be seen by partners who are able and willing to reciprocate.

Without this, reciprocity is impossible. Without this, giving always loses. Observers must be able and willing to reciprocate. Thus, two factors encourage giving in the game:

  1. Audience capacity.

This answers, “Are they able to reciprocate?”

  1. Reciprocity signals.

This answers, “Are they willing to reciprocate?”

These are rules for the primal-giving game. These are also rules for the modern fundraising game. We’ll look at both in depth. But first, it’s important to recognize something.

That’s not how people think

OK, I get it. These games might be fun. But there’s a problem. Maybe you’ve sensed it already. You might be saying,

Fine. I’ll concede. This isn’t how people think. (Well, maybe professors do. But we don’t count as real people.) Here’s the thing. Natural selection isn’t based on what people think. It’s based on what they do.

It’s how they act

Can we predict where a cow will graze? Yes. How? With a spatial lag regression model. Specifically, one including elevation, slope, cover, and distance from fence, roads, and water. Don’t believe me? Read the academic paper.39

But is that how cows think? Are cows secretly doing calculus?40 Probably not. But cows do graze optimally. The ones who didn’t died out long ago.

Optimizing behaviors replicate. Failing behaviors don’t. A model that identifies optimizing behavior will predict actions. This is true even if it isn’t “how” a creature thinks.41 Natural origins might not predict how people will think. They do predict how people will act.

The game predicts actions. But the game’s math calculations are not how people think. Indeed, they shouldn’t be. Slowly making such deliberative calculations is inefficient. Instead, these reactions are quick. They’re embedded deep in fast, intuitive, emotional systems.42 Zoologist Gerald Carter explains,

“Calculated reciprocity in humans often appears ‘instinctive,’ subconscious, and context-specific. Rather than relying on strategic self-control, many human prosocial behaviors are fast, intuitive, and built into our basic emotions ... Reasoning through a logic puzzle is slow and difficult compared to the way insight is quickly gained about the same logical problem framed as a social exchange.”43

How people think is with social emotion, not math. But the math still predicts behavior. In each case, the game works. It matches experiments. It matches real-world donor behavior. It matches effective fundraising practice.

It’s how they act even when it doesn’t make sense

But wait a second. Often donors aren’t expecting any actual reciprocity or returned favors. And they certainly know the beneficiaries aren’t related to them. So, why are reciprocity and similarity signals still important?

Giving behavior didn’t develop in the modern world. It developed in a smaller, more communal world. In that world, reciprocity was real. Responding to reciprocity signals could even impact survival.

In the modern world, things may be different. These ancient signals may no longer make sense logically. But the power of the signal remains. It remains because it’s hard wired. Changing the environment doesn’t change the power of the signal.

An example from biology illustrates this. An example from biology might help. In the 1940s, a biologist was working with herring-gull chicks.44 Chicks begged for food by pecking on a parent’s beak. Noticing a red dot on the beaks, he painted this on a flat stick. The chicks pecked at the red dot on the stick.

But then things got weird. He made a striped metal rod with even stronger contrast. The chicks went for it. They loved it so much, they ignored the parent’s natural markings.45

Here’s another example. The female fritillary butterfly’s fluttering wings attract males for mating. In nature, faster fluttering shows better health and a more attractive mate. But in the lab, a rotating cylinder creates super-fast fluttering. It turns out, male butterflies prefer the high-speed cylinder to actual female butterflies.46

These “supernormal” stimuli are odd examples.47 But they show an underlying idea. Preferences develop in the original natural setting. But they continue even after the setting changes.48 They continue even if they no longer make sense.

Prehistoric man had no international relief charities or institutional advancement offices. But the giving signals selected in prehistory still matter today.49 They still matter, even if they no longer make sense.

The signals still matter

Instead of birds and butterflies, let’s look at people. In the game, the unbreakable natural law of giving starts with,

“Giving must be seen ...”

Gift visibility works. But here’s where it gets weird. It works even if it isn’t real. Just posting a picture of watching eyes nearby increases donations.50

The results get even more extreme. One experiment put three dots on fundraising appeal letters for a public library.51 The three dots were arranged either as a “pyramid,”

Three blue dots arranged as a triangle, with one dot above two.

or as “eyespots”:

Three blue dots arranged as an inverted triangle, with two dots above one.

Letters with “eyespots” generated more than three times the donations of those with a “pyramid.”52 Of course, this isn’t logical. But it is predictable. The ancient signals still drive behavior. The do so even when they no longer make sense. When we flip that switch, we get a response.

Conclusion

The primal-giving game matters. This little game shows when reciprocal altruism works. It shows when it works in the big game of survival.

In prehistory, we won that game by paying attention to these signals. The modern world is different. But playing the modern fundraising game still requires paying attention to these ancient signals. Next, we’ll explore one of those signals.