Embracing the Diversity of Human Tastes
Fundraising with Diversity of Preferences in Mind
In 2004, Malcolm Gladwell gave a TedTalk where he explained how studies about consumer taste preferences for products as simple as spaghetti sauces, mustards, and coffees, showed that there was no “vertical” hierarchy to preferences, just a “horizontal plane” instead.
To paraphrase, human tastes and preferences fell on a “horizontal plane, where there is no good or bad, perfect or imperfect, just different kinds that suit different kinds of people.” There was “no perfect way to make something” and ”there are no universals to preferences.”
Ultimately,he concluded that: “in embracing the diversity of human beings, you will find a surer way to true happiness.”
Choice Is a Good Thing
So, maybe DonorsChoose.org, as well as other crowd-funding organizations, have it right by enabling individuals to create a large variety of projects for potential donors to choose from, instead of limiting choices to larger more collective generic buckets of aid that someone else less-transparently would dole out as deemed necessary.
Like the Long-Tail theory, popularized by Chris Andersen, also in 2004, maybe charitable organizations can also “realize significant profit out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items.”
Planning It Best
So, when it comes to planning promotions for a crowd-funding site like DonorsChoose, two options become evident, either: (1) raising awareness for the organization as a whole, and explaining to those potential donors how to choose among the projects that most appeal to them, or (2) promoting individual projects separately.
More practically though, it seems the most efficient and scalable option would be to run fundraising promotions that would focus first on attracting the more collective interest of supporting Education, or Education for subject-specific projects, rather than separately promoting each individual long-tail project to a broad unspecific audience.
Understanding how human needs intersect with human preferences can definitely make the match-making process between the two that much more efficient and effective for all parties involved.
Donation Request: I am writing this series as part of the 4-Hour Chef Giveback Campaign contest. Would you consider donating a dollar or two to my DonorsChoose.org Campaign page, found by clicking through this link today, thereby supporting teachers in K-12 classrooms that are working to create a positive learning environment for their students in the best way they know how?
Thank you in advance for considering where your preferences intersect with other’s needs. :)
Photo Credit: title=”Hot Pot Sauce & Condiments Diversity” by See-ming Lee, on Flickr
