Most charities segment their supporters by the easy stuff. For donors, this means how recently have people given, how frequently have people given and how much they have given (or RFV in the fundraiser lexicon). For many charities this works well, but for some it is a segmentation strategy that limits the ability to understand the dynamics of their supporter base.

These kinds of charities want to build the more complex dynamics of attitude into their segmentation mix. This may be because they believe that attitude plays a particularly important role in their supporters’ motivations. It may be because the charity wants to extract every last ounce of money or commitment from a database.

The Money for Good study made a valiant attempt to try and understand the dynamics of giving by carrying out an attitudinal segmentation cluster analysis on the UK population. This produced a number of segments in relation to giving patterns. Despite the vast expense, Money for Good failed because it didn’t go far enough.

At nfpSynergy, we learnt the hard way that doing a generic segmentation based on attitudes to giving and the charity alone is not enough. Four years ago, we did our own donor and volunteer segmentation analysis. Our clients murmured “interesting” and “insightful”, but did nothing with it.

The reason is simple. Doing a segmentation analysis based on giving patterns alone, the kind that we and Money for Good did, misses out what makes each charity different. It implies that people could support any charity and that cause, engagement and individual charity brand are not important.

Charities are not cut from some cookie-cutter mould. The public engage with overseas charities in a completely differently way to cancer or local charities. The public perceive Oxfam, Greenpeace, Salvation Army and Macmillan in very different ways. Any segmentation that simply looks at giving and not at cause is as incomplete as an analysis of TV viewing which only looks at channels and not at TV genre or even individual TV programmes.

We have also learnt this lesson the hard way with clients. On one project about volunteering, the survey data indicated that the public should be keen on volunteering in certain ways. However, when we asked about the volunteering ideas in focus groups, some participants would say “I might volunteer but not for that charity” and “I think of that charity as doing something different.”

The cause of the charity and the image they had kept getting in the way. Giving and volunteering can’t be shoe-horned into the cookie-cutters of generic descriptions.

So how can attitudinal segmentation be made to work?

Do specific research

Any attitudinal segmentation needs original research to understand the relationship between a charity, its cause and its supporters (and detractors). Original research helps tease out the perceptions of both existing supporters and the public of a specific charity.

Use one (brilliant) database

To make segmentation work, the right messages need to go to the right people, time after time. Many charities struggle to have one database (and use it) for all their supporters. They have a database for donors and another for volunteers, along with an excel spreadsheet for helpline users.

For attitudinal segmentation, there needs to be one database which takes into account all the different ways that people support and think about a charity. That database needs to store all the relevant information and then segment people accordingly.

Prepare for the long haul

Doing research is the easy part of attitudinal segmentation. Integrating that segmentation with the database and sending out tailored communications over a period of years is the hard task. Indeed, just identifying which segment a supporter belongs to is no easy job.

Develop new products

There is no point in identifying distinct segments and then sending them the same material as before. Segments need products to make them work to lock in all the specific communication needs of a segment. A product could be something like a committed giving scheme, a volunteering programme for experience seekers, a donor scheme for those who want to support a particular service and so on.

Attitudinal segmentation is the triathlon of donor insight and supporter development. It requires teams across a charity to work together. It requires a breadth of skills. It requires perseverance and organisational focus. However, we have seen clients in the environmental, overseas, children’s and medical arenas derive considerable benefits, indeed competitive advantage, from using attitudes as part of their segmentation strategy.

The benefits of attitudinal segmentation can be game-changing for an organisation, but the road is paved with hard work and good management.