Premium Episode: "Neurogiving:The Science of Donor Decision-Making". Meet the Author, Cherian Koshy.

Cherian Koshy: [00:00:00] When a human sees another person's story and makes them feel seen, that's the part that every one of us deeply need. We know when a human reflects that back to us. No robot could ever do that.

Jeff Holden: Welcome to the nonprofit podcast network. Work here. Our purpose and passion are simple to highlight the incredible nonprofits that make our communities stronger. Each episode is a chance for these organizations to tell their story in their words, sharing not just what they do, but why it matters to the people they serve, to their supporters, and to all of us who believe in the power of community.

Through podcasting, we hope to amplify their voices, inspire connection, and give them one [00:01:00] more tool to reach the hearts of donors, partners, and neighbors alike. This work is made possible through the generous support of our founding partners captrust, offering fiduciary advice for endowments and foundations serving Sacramento, Roseville, and Folsom, and online@captrust.com.

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I'm proud to welcome our newest partner, core executive leadership and comprehensive support services. Working in it so you can work on it. Visit cx OR e.com. This premium episode is one of those rare moments when you get to celebrate something big and still walk away with [00:02:00] practical tool that you can use the very next day.

This episode is for everyone in the nonprofit space. I'm speaking with Cherry and Kohi about his brand new book, neuro Giving, the Science of Donor Decision Making. It's a nonprofit focused instructional book built for fundraisers, executive leaders, boards, and anyone who's trying to understand what really drives generosity.

He's the founder of Nonprofit os, an AI powered platform that revolutionized nonprofit efficiency and strategy and is certified in behavioral science from Harvard Business School, among other certifications he holds. He's also been published in Forbes, advancing Philanthropy and Nonprofit Pro to name just a few.

In our conversation, Sherion explains what happens in the brain when donors decide to give, why some best practices work in one situation and fall flat in another, and how trust, identity, storytelling, and even digital behavior shape giving in ways most of us were never [00:03:00] trained to see. But let me be clear, this is not about hacking people or manipulating donors.

Sherry is adamant about that. This is about becoming more human centered, more ethical, and more intentional. Especially at a time when so many nonprofits are facing real pressure, tighter budgets and noisy digital environments that make it harder than ever to earn attention and keep loyalty. If you lead a nonprofit, if you sit on a board, if you work in development, marketing, or community engagement, or if you simply care about how generosity works, you are going to love this episode and subsequently the book.

I'm so excited to present this episode to you. Let's get started. Kohi, welcome to the Nonprofit Podcast Network. Thanks so much for having me. It's a joy to be here, and I know it's a joy to share something else. Your book, which we are going to talk about in just a second, released on [00:04:00] December 9th, and you have some pretty exciting news from USA today that we were just talking about.

Prerecording, what is that? 

Cherian Koshy: Uh, some unbelievable news actually. So, on Wednesday, a friend of mine texted me and said. You're on the USA Today bestseller list, so the day after release, it somehow made it onto that list. 

Jeff Holden: That's absolutely incredible. And my opinion is it absolutely belongs there. I can't wait to see it on the New York Times bestseller list.

And we know it's unusual for a nonprofit oriented book. To even make that list in the first place. That's 

Cherian Koshy: apparently unheard of. Uh, nobody can think of another book that has, that's specific to nonprofits and certainly not a nonprofit instructional book. That has made it to the USA bestseller list. There have been like memoirs from nonprofit leaders like John Bryan's book that's been on the USA day [00:05:00] bestseller list and, and, you know, absolutely well deserved, but nothing that's been a nonprofit type book.

You know, I'm, I'm shocked. There are great books that I have behind me on my shelf, like unhirable and Forces for Good and Network, nonprofit, like great, great books that have sold millions and millions of copies. Nothing like. That has happened to this book by any means, but did not, did not make the list and, and certainly in my opinion, should have made the list.

So we're just very lucky at this point to, to have made the list. 

Jeff Holden: Well, I know many of our listeners are gonna be familiar with the books that you just named. And now they will be adding yours to that equation. And they're going, well, what is this book? We haven't named the title yet. Uh, they know the author because we did that in the introduction.

But let me say, it's Neuro Giving, the Science of Donor Decision Making. And just in the thought process of what that is, you wonder and conjures up ideas. Chapter title, it's like psychology of [00:06:00] donor decision making, the science of storytelling, neuroscience and behavior. Here we are neuro giving it portends, something deeply embedded on the brain.

It's futuristic, technologically advanced, maybe even playing to manipulative through neuroscience tactics. Share with us the genesis of the book, if you would. 

Cherian Koshy: Yeah, so I, I hope that no one misunderstands that it, it's about hacking a donor's brain or using fancy gadgets to manipulate donors. That's definitely not what I set out to write, and in fact, I apologize for anyone who does have the book in their hands, and they see multiple times the phrase like, this is not how you use the book.

This is not how you use the tactics in the book. In fact, the editors. Came back and said, you know, I think they got it. I think they understand. And I said, I really do think that we should keep this in there because most people don't read a book cover to cover. They might pick out a section or something like that.

And I didn't want anyone to misunderstand what the book [00:07:00] was for. And the genesis is actually much simpler. I, I had spent almost three decades in fundraising and I was frustrated by. Going to conferences and seeing basically the same three or four slides over and over again. I'm sure you've seen those same slides and we all have.

And, uh, I had tried the same tactics in different circumstances and seen them succeed in one instance and then fail in another. And I got in my head about why is this happening? Why weren't those so-called best practices working? And I didn't understand. Why one piece of anecdotal case study would work for them and wouldn't work for me.

So I started going deep into the rabbit hole of research inside of the sector, outside of the sector, and, and that's what this book really is, is not my personal experience in fundraising. It's [00:08:00] 220 plus peer reviewed. Research studies and the research indicates this is what's happening in the brain of how donors make decisions, how we all make decisions.

And my hope is that it's a reference guide that helps people navigate the research so that maybe they come to a decision about how they. Write an appeal or conduct their strategy or something like that. But it also allows them to bypass all of that, library works, all of that, that searching, and start with a research base and then say, let's test.

Let's figure this out for our own shop so that they are able to. To navigate that part and, and then come up with their own conclusions. 

Jeff Holden: I know the copy that I got, it's a digital copy. Mm-hmm. As I was going through it and reading through it, I couldn't highlight enough. I can't wait to get the hard [00:09:00] copy so I can tatter and tear those pages and highlight and reference them because there was so much great information in there that well.

Often, many of us understand it. We've experienced it, we've even done it to some degree, but maybe not with the level of intentionality that the book will help us get to, to do these sorts of things. Who would you suggest the book is written for? Obviously we're gonna be talking to nonprofit leadership, but does it go beyond that?

Cherian Koshy: Yes, absolutely. I mean, my hope is that it's something that. Everyone can put pick up anywhere inside of the nonprofit ecosystem, and then even beyond that, so certainly for frontline fundraisers. The, they probably know the best practice, uh, the so-called best practice, whatever that is, and the, the how of what's happening.

But the book gives them an understanding of why that's happening in the brain of [00:10:00] the donor so that they can extrapolate, they can play with those principles and then use them in different circumstances. So it's not just the. Element of this works, it's this works for this reason, so I can apply that in different ways.

One of the biggest compliments I received this week is someone bought this for their marketing team, so that their marketing team understood why the fundraisers were doing this piece, uh, the, their work. They could break down silos and work together. And they also bought it for their executive leadership team, not just the executive director or the CEO, but the entire executive leadership team, so they could all understand how donors might interact with all of their different programming, their messaging, their, their website, their communications, and they bought it for their board as well, so that the board could understand the, uh, the implications of the work they were doing.

Honestly, I think that's the best compliment that [00:11:00] I've received is that the whole organization felt it necessary or relevant to the work that they were doing. 

Jeff Holden: I would even take that a step further. As you were going, I'm thinking, I hope he says bored. I hope he says bored, because it's so important to get that board buy-in and understanding of what they're doing.

I would also suggest any advertising agency that's dealing with nonprofits Sure way that's collaboratively dealing with nonprofits. It's such a great experience to read through, to understand, even if you are not a frontline person, at least you get an understanding of what that frontline person's dealing with as you go through the specifics of how you identify those.

And I wanna congratulate you too, 2 22 peer reviewed studies. That's validation. Not to mention you have almost three decades of fundraising and you're on global leadership for the Association of Fundraising Professionals or a FP. As many people know it, I mean. That's, that's a really great [00:12:00] resource to say.

I've written something. 

Cherian Koshy: I, I would also add that when you take for fundraisers who have done this work and know that the work of applying this strategy. Is successful. It's helpful to take the book and put it in the hands of leadership, whether that's inside the organization or boards as you mentioned, or maybe a consultant to put it in front of them and to say, it's not just me that's saying this works.

It's all of these other, it's not cheer, and that's saying this works. It's not the fundraiser that's saying this works. It's these 200 academics that. Have proven that this works. It's sort of that thud factor mm-hmm. That you can lay on the table and say, this is a, a lot of people that are saying this works and here's why.

That can be helpful when you are trying to go to bat for more resources, more staff, more, you know, val, internal validation and buy-in of the work. 

Jeff Holden: [00:13:00] Wouldn't a professional fundraiser already understand the rationalization process of acquiring a donor? I mean, we know proper stewardship and trust building is significant over time and, and they create reasonably good outcomes already, don't they?

Cherian Koshy: You're absolutely right. They do. And this is not designed to suggest that fundraisers are doing something wrong or that, that they don't know what they're doing. Good fundraisers do know that you need stewardship and trust and consistency. Uh, I'm not arguing that they don't. What I'm saying is that maybe you are driving down the road.

In a car really well without ever having looked underneath the hood. And you may not know what's powering the work that you're doing. So it works on average. And the challenge that, you know, we all know in the sector that's impacting every single one of us is that retention is being impacted. First time donor [00:14:00] retentions being impacted.

Even loyal supporters that we've had for years are. Are falling away. And so there's no organization that's perfect, that's doing all of their, their KPIs or their objectives as perfectly as they want to. And there's always ways to do better. But when we take the what and the how, and. Understand the why behind that.

That gives us a deeper understanding of how we might be able to apply that in different circumstances, especially when external factors change. So for years, I mean, when I, when I got started almost 30 years ago, a lot of the resources out there were. This is what I did in another organization and therefore you should try this in your organization.

And there wasn't a lot of external validation. We know better now. We have lots of peer reviewed studies that tell us this is not only what [00:15:00] works, but we actually understand the psychology behind why that works. And so you can then take that in your. In your zoo or in your museum or in your hospital or in your university and say The circumstances of that institution are different, but the psychological principles that make that true apply in our organization.

So we could test that in a different way, and that makes the process repeatable and scalable and human centered. 

Jeff Holden: Key word right there. I was just going to say it's human is what it is, as opposed to procedural and to your point of the car. I love the analogy. It's really unintentional versus intentional.

You know, once you understand what makes that car drive and makes it run, you're a much better driver as a result of the intentionality of the execution, of the process of driving. Precisely right. 

Cherian Koshy: And for what's worth, I don't know how my own car works, [00:16:00] but. If I had ever read the manual, I feel like I would be better attuned to how my car drives in different environments.

So that's the analogy that I like to use. 

Jeff Holden: We have to watch that analogy at some point because we're going to a self-driving world at some point. That's right. Exactly. I don't think we wanna automate de development at all. Yeah, 

Cherian Koshy: no, I, I agree. I do not think that we do. 

Jeff Holden: I, I love the application of technology and the technologically advanced tools that you reference in the book, especially with neural activity.

Tell us a little bit about that, because you got into MRIs specifically to see what's happening in the brain when certain keywords or triggers are used. 

Cherian Koshy: So I think the brain science piece is actually fascinating. Brain imaging work is fascinating. So they literally hook up electrodes to people's brains and then have them engage in philanthropic, generos generous behavior, and then see where parts of the brain light up.

So what we know is that when people [00:17:00] give to charity. Parts of the brain's reward, circuitry, light up, and those parts of the brains are very specific. It's more active when people give money to others than when they keep money for themselves. And so. Generosity isn't just a noble moral act, it's actually biologically rewarding.

That's one of the pieces that I start with in the introduction of the book, that it's actually a biological act. The other piece that's really interesting, I used to work in a performing art center and one of the studies that they did is they, hi, they wired people up on with a brain monitor and a heart monitor, and when people hear a compelling story.

Something truly remarkable happens. Their brains sync up with one another and their heartbeats sync up with one another. Even when they leave the, the place where they're uh, uh, watching a performance or they're hearing a story, their heartbeats remain in rhythm after that. [00:18:00] So what's fascinating about that for everyone that's.

Telling a story to their community, their volunteers, their, their donors, whoever you're telling a story to is that when you tell that story, the person on the other end is not just downloading information, their brain is actually sinking with your brain. They're feeling the story along with you, and their heart is in rhythm with your heart if you're verbalizing that story.

So. When you tell a story of 10,000 people and it's very info centered, the brain actually shuts off. It doesn't understand the numbers part because it's not designed to do that. But when you tell a story of an individual person with these rich details, it's fully understands. Like if I say, you know, Maria was walking through the forest and she was wet and she was cold, and she was searching for [00:19:00] something.

In that literal moment, you had an image of who Maria was and you felt what it was like for Maria to be cold and wet. There was a sense in that literal moment of who you thought Maria was and you had this sense of what it meant to be cold and wet. Your brain was mirroring that activity. Mirror neurons actually.

So that's how the, the brain fully understands what the content. That message is, and it's actually how we are designed to make decisions. Our brains put things into narrative context in order to make a decision. I think every fundraiser at some level understands that, but when we put the science behind, it's like, oh, we actually can't tell, give people data because.

The brain doesn't process data in that way. It needs to put a story around it, and it [00:20:00] pushes us to move donors from being an ATM that inputs data and outputs money to being someone that's part of this unfolding narrative, and it confirms what the best fundraisers have. Al always, always felt intuitively.

Jeff Holden: We'll be back with more from Cherry and Kohi with regard to his unbelievable study on neuro giving right after the messages from those who make this program possible. 

Darrell Teat: We are really excited to be part of the family and contribute to the work that you all are doing. Core provides fractional and interim executive services along with comprehensive back office solutions that go into our client sites and do the work to give them the capacity they need in order to move through transitions, whether that's planned or unplanned, or companies also work with our accounting and finance.

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Scott Thomas: Hello, this is Scott Thomas with CAPTRUST in our Sacramento office. I specialize in working with local nonprofits and associations annually. We survey private and public nonprofit organizations across the country to better understand challenges they see in today's environment.

In our more recent survey, we hear concerns about proper board governance, mission aligned investment, and how to implement alternative investments. If you would like a copy of the survey or do discuss your organization, look me up, scottThomas@captrust.com. [00:22:00] At Western Health 

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As a nonprofit leader, you need a health plan that understands the important of mission-driven work. Western Health Advantage is a local not-for-profit health plan that supports organizations like yours with affordable, flexible coverage options for your team. What truly sets them apart is their commitment to community supporting nonprofits like the American Heart Association, Sacramento Ballet, and the Crocker Art Museums Pay what you wish Sundays with access to top tier providers and dedicated local support.

Western Health advantages more than a health plan. It's a partner in your purpose. Explore your options today@westernhealth.com. Western Health Advantage, healthcare with Heart designed for those who give back. I love the way you explained it. I did not realize that, and I didn't pick that up from the, from the book.

But like I said, I've gotta go [00:23:00] over and over this thing because there's so much in there. I come from a radial background. And we started this podcast as a podcast, audio podcast. Mm-hmm. Only, and it was always about the understanding of the theater of their mind, Uhhuh. And you wanna be as descriptive as possible to engage the audience.

But now knowing that is why some of those programs were as successful as they were, that were most engaging because you're in rhythm, in sync with that announcer or that personality as we know it's a one-to-one medium. Yeah. You are engaging. I had not known that, but I can certainly see the significance of it and why some hosts and morning shows, evening shows, whomever they may be.

The more descriptive they are, the more likely they are to be maybe more popular, scientifically proven. Absolutely love that. Chapter four of the book is titled Identity, trust and Long-Term Giving, which yes, yes, yes. We all want. I'm gonna summarize my understanding to a statement here. Trust is a neurochemical [00:24:00] experience built through predictability and empathy.

A physical visceral change in our chemistry occurs from giving. But how are you suggesting that this applies to trust and identity beyond just the interest and engagement with a donor? 

Cherian Koshy: Yeah, so I think that sometimes we. We look at trust and identity and long-term giving as these sort of ephemeral characteristics, these things that are squishy and things that we can't necessarily understand and.

The science indicates that it's not abstract. It's actually a very physical phenomenon. When we experience someone as consistent and fair and caring, our brains release very specific neurochemicals like oxytocin. That is, that's the bonding chemical that makes us feel safe with someone else when we're stressed or when we're uncertain.

We, our brains release a [00:25:00] chemical called cortisol, and that tells us that our threat circuits are heightened. So over time, when someone does what they're, what they say they're going to do, when they see and respect me, it actually literally rewires the brain, chemically rewires the brain and our brain re-categorize that relationship.

So identity comes in because the brain is answering the question, who am I and who is my community? In the repeated experience with the people and the organization as a whole. They're saying the, the donor or the volunteer, the community member, whoever it is, is saying they remember me. They understand what I care about.

When I give, I feel seen, and their brain is literally gradually upgrading. The understanding [00:26:00] of this is a, these are people that I don't know to an organization that I support to. These are my people. This organization is my responsibility. This cause is my responsibility. I once got that response in a survey at an organization that I was working at, and I was like, this is the win.

This is like the holy grail of responses. This cause is my responsibility. Goodness gracious. Like we won the trust. This person at that point, it's no longer a transaction. It's no longer a gift that's being given. It's an expression of identity. That's the person saying, I'm the kind of person that stands up for kids.

I'm the kind of neighbors who takes care of elders. I'm the kind of alum that that fulfills and invests in next generation. So sometimes specifically for leaders. Sometimes leaders think that a grand act [00:27:00] of trust, some big experience of trust or expression of trust can supplement or, or, or can create an experience that creates an environment of trust for a donor, when in reality it is consistent and predictable over a long period of time and demonstrates things like empathy and vulnerability and.

Each gift each. Each micro relationship moment comes back to the story of who the donor is becoming, who they are growing to become. So I don't want people to misunderstand that this is like about donor power, about donors being a savior or anything like that. It's potentially, it should be about the donor becoming the best version of themselves through their generosity.

And when you do that consistently, you're not just raising money, you're shaping the long-term donor identity that's backed by this chemistry of [00:28:00] trust. 

Jeff Holden: I can see that. Association to this is Me. You're pulling that donor into the organization as much as if they were literally involved in the operation of the organization.

Cherian Koshy: Exactly. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah. I, I mean that, that's powerful to get to that point. Because they see it as an extension of themselves. And I know from other studies that we've seen, read, heard that neuropathways can be recreated. We see it with traumatic brain injury. Neuropathways can be recreated, and as you repeat that behavior that is.

Feel good behavior. It reinforces the neural pathway to want you to continue to do more of it. 

Cherian Koshy: Yep, exactly. And I mean it, the beautiful part about that, so it's a process called myelination. You can actually see the mye and grow around the real technical now around the, the, the sheath of the, the neuron.

The point though is that we've all. We all have these like automatic behaviors that [00:29:00] we have, like you'll drive back to the car analogy, like you'll drive home and forget how you got there. That's what we're aiming for with donor behavior is that they're, this is something that they feel inside of themselves, so much so that they just, that this is part of who they are and what they do, and.

The beautiful part about that is that even when external factors change, when the economy does whatever it does, or you know, something else happens in the external environment, it doesn't change how they feel about the organization. It's very sticky to who they are. And because it's an identity question, it's not a, a transactional external based.

Part of who they are. It's truly inbuilt. And that makes a huge difference then in terms of loyalty and retention and all of those other aspects. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah, it's, it's interesting. It's embedded in the character of the individual. Share with us what we can learn in the book from the [00:30:00] chapter time versus money.

Ah, and, and, and I would say, you know, it's tithe and time. 

Cherian Koshy: Yeah. Talk a little bit about that. So that's one of my favorite streams of research. I spent a lot of time, I, I worked at volunteer Iowa's their chair for a long time. So it's really, it was really important to me to focus on not just. Donating money, but also donating in time.

So researchers have demonstrated that when you ask people to think about time, they actually become more emotional and more relational and more generous. And when you think, when you ask them to think about money, they actually become. They're still generous and they're still emotional and relational, but they actually become a bit more analytical about how they're thinking about their generosity.

So neurologically and behaviorally, giving time, volunteering, showing up, being an advocate, taps into social and empathy networks. So who we are to other people, and it creates. [00:31:00] Vivid episodic memories about how we're interacting with other people. So I remember unpacking those boxes or feeding someone and mentoring that student.

And those are powerful anchors for long-term loyalty. Giving money lights up a, a reward circuit circuitry that's very powerful and different. That creates a warm glow. It's a different t uh, attachment, a different story that is. Very valid. It's very important. I don't want to us to think that one's better or one's worse, but it means that we don't wanna make money the only star of the show.

That's the outcome that I would hope that people get out of that. Chapter. A lot of times organizations will be like, let's prioritize money exclusively. And the chapter really reinforces that there's a viability to invite people into both experiences, to engage both pieces for the purposes of [00:32:00] creating different streams of memory engagement, different streams of, of emotional and empathy engagement, and frame it in terms of time and money impact.

So that. That creates this, this stickiness of, of engagement with the, with the person. And they feel more connected to the organization than they would with just giving money or just giving time 

Jeff Holden: to the point, compliments to any business that has their. Team, their crew, their employees volunteer to these organizations that they support for that very reason because now there's this vested interest in the organization.

I can think of many Habitat for Humanity, for example, where people go out and they're banging nails and building houses or food banks where you have people packing boxes for food insecure, those sorts of things where you have big companies who are. Donating the time of their employees really [00:33:00] solidifies that whole element of time versus money to where now you have this engagement of not only the business or the leadership of the business who does give, but you have the entire culture of that business embedded in what that organization does.

And I would even suggest that if your board is not doing some of the things, the services, the activities that the nonprofit does. That's, that's a, a, a mistake there, get them involved. 

Cherian Koshy: That's precisely right. And it's, it comes back to a different juristic and a different chapter. It's called cognitive dissonance.

So when you put your money into something, you feel connected to that and you say like, then it's actually kind of a concept of a sunk cost fallacy, like I should. If I'm gonna do this, well then I should keep, you know, I should keep doing this. But when you put your time and your money into something, a corporation, for example, that gives money to an organization.

If they're also investing a day of volunteering, well now they've seen it in action. They've [00:34:00] put their hands on it, they've now committed, and they created that, that communal memory that connects with the dollars. Very, very hard to rip that out. Of the comm, the corporate culture. So that's how you retain an individual donor, a corporate donor.

That's the key to the, the stickiness that I mentioned. There's a, um, someone asked me this question about corporate donors. Is the book apply to corporate donors? Remember, the corporations are groups of individuals, so there's ways in which you can apply these principles. Once you understand the principles at play, then you can, you can play jazz, right?

You, once you know the notes, then you can play jazz with any of these principles and see like, oh, if we're involving these people in these different pieces, then it's again, we're not doing anything they don't wanna do. They're obviously generous. They're obviously, you know, giving money. They're volunteering.

It's now, where are those [00:35:00] connective tissue pieces that. Make them want to stay connected even more, because now they have these good memories of being involved in a cause in a much deeper way 

Jeff Holden: and what the book is doing, again, back to the value of so much in in book. We're taking things from what we might have known at a gut level, unintentionally.

Yeah, we know it's good. Let's get the team involved. Let's build culture around, whatever it may be. That's the cause, mission, purpose of the corporate culture into the community, and we're making it intentional. Now we can take this. Interest that we've got in that particular nonprofit and really work it all the way through 360 from the start and the origination at the highest level of leadership all the way down to the people who are volunteering, coming back to the workplace and saying, oh my gosh, that was so neat.

I didn't know. I'm so proud to be a part of X, Y, Z corporate. That's precisely right. Yeah, [00:36:00] wonderful. We are seeing a lot of our long-term organizations fall into some critical funding needs because of the federal and and state budget. You have some recommendations in the book that you reference as crisis fundraising and its association to neuroscience of course, right?

Yeah. What would you say that you found from looking into that in a different perspective now, not just normal donor giving, but this crisis fundraising? 

Cherian Koshy: Yeah, so I mean, we're all, um, we're all dealing with crisis fundraising. It doesn't matter what organization you're in, right? But the thing to remember is that.

Every brain is essentially operating under a crisis mentality. And what I mean by that is that your brain is an energy hoarder. Your brain uses 25% of your body's calories, and it only, it's only 3% of your body's [00:37:00] mass. So it's the equivalent of. A cell phone that is always at about 1% battery life. It's trying to conserve as much energy as possible all the time, so it uses shortcuts to make decisions all day, every day.

And. When your brain is constantly under stress and crisis, it's making even more shortcuts to make those decisions. So whether it's a natural disaster or a budget collapse or political scandal, or any number of things, and I, I, and you know, the, the examples that you gave were specific to the US but you know, in the book we talk about all examples all over across the, the country.

Uh, there are examples of. People in Ukraine who are giving, giving money to other people in Ukraine, when they are in a war torn situation themselves, the, the brain prioritizes [00:38:00] threat detection. It says, am I in danger? And then it narrows its focus to the absolute thing that I have to do to survive in this moment.

And it conserves resources to say, I'm only gonna do that thing. So short bursts of intense crisis. Notification mess messaging is actually reim really important. It allows us to say, this is urgent and I can activate on compassion. I can point out this is something to pay attention to, but many times organizations operate under a permanent state of crisis or alarm.

So when that happens, people become desensitized to all of the things that are happening and. We mistake this as donor fatigue, but it's actually compassion fatigue as a result of the desensitization. Everyone's seeing all of these bad things happening, and our brain says, I'm going to [00:39:00] emotionally pull back, not because they don't care, but because they're overwhelmed.

Jeff Holden: Mm-hmm. 

Cherian Koshy: And so the research indicates that there's a better pattern and the better pattern is to name the crisis. Very clearly, very concisely and say, this is what is happening. This is how bad it is. We, we don't wanna shy away from that. But then to encapsulate the problem into a human action that can occur, you can help this one person.

This is the crisis portion that you can actually affect and then pair urgency with hope. Pair urgency with hope show the the donor or the volunteer or the community, how they can do something that will actually make a difference and then make that difference occur. Right? So if it means that you can feed someone today, then deliver on the feeding someone today and prove that that occurred so they [00:40:00] can see the resolution once they see that occurring.

Then you can go back to, there's, there's still opportunity to help. There's still something because they've now seen that their help has made a difference. That's what neurologically appropriate crisis management, if you will, of the brain, is it's clear, it's honest, it's bounded, it demonstrates hope. It's not this constant five alarm fire so that it's respectful of the emotional bandwidth that people have.

Jeff Holden: And I can see fatigue being one word, exhaustion being another, but overload is a much better description because the intent is still there. It's just too much. Can't do it, can't do it. And that messaging is gonna be really critical. I, I would imagine a lot of people are gonna stick in this space right here in the book to just go over and over and craft it to the best they possibly can because [00:41:00] there is so much crisis in fundraising, in giving today, in, in so many different ways, in so many different reasons, which we won't get into here.

Digital fundraising is, is really necessary to stay relevant and a lot of our nonprofits and organizations recognize that. So they're pumping out a lot of content and whether it be short, long form content, whatever. But what did you see in the science of digital behavior? You know, we, we know there's a visceral response, again, back to what you see and hear, but you actually found something.

Cherian Koshy: Yeah. One of the most important findings is that. Attention is the most significant resource that we have as organizations, and it's also the most undervalued resource. We tend to think of staffing or financial resources, but attention is the most valuable resource and. The neurochemicals that we have are, uh, that the donor brain functions on are [00:42:00] also the exact same neurochemicals that social media and digital platforms are built upon.

So, like Jonathan Hate's book, the Anxious Generations one that I would independently recommend, he talks about how. Social media platforms are all based upon dopamine driven feedback loops. So the likes and the hearts and the notifications are all driven to build engagement on those platforms. Keep you coming back for more social proof.

Seeing what other people are doing makes us want to mirror what they're doing, feeding into the algorithms and cognitive ease, right? Being able to do the one one tap purchase on on platforms like Amazon. So the research indicates that. There are pros and cons of this. This is not like a, you know, you should do this type of thing, but it helps us to understand that the platforms are doing things to align with a purchasing brain.

There are ways in which the brain has attenuated to that, that we [00:43:00] can understand for donor or volunteer behavior, just audience behavior. But seeing peers give, for example, in any amount, in any environment, can. Truly impact how our own behavior, our own likelihood of giving is, uh, influence. If we see other people giving, we certainly will.

That certainly changes how we will give that impacts peer-to-peer giving online. It impacts, it impacts things like, you know. In person galas and leaderboards and things like that. So that evidence is really clear. It impacts things like, like web forms, right? Every piece of, uh, every field that we require, every click, every, every part of that creates mental friction.

And the, the statement that I make in, in keynotes and workshops all the time is that the enemy of good fundraising, of successful fundraising is not, no, it's not now because. Generous. People want to [00:44:00] do good. They want to make a donation, they wanna get involved, but then something else happens in their life, and if it's not easy for them to do in that second where they feel that emotional connection, then the doorbell rings, then their kid has a tantrum, then you know, a slack message pops up and they'll just say, with all good intention, I'll get back to it.

That's like, you know, probably the slides in the recording from some webinar I gave, they're like, I'll download that and I'll listen to it later. And they never do. Yeah. And it's just that reality of how do we get through all of the digital noise that occurs and there's just so much water building up in the, in the ocean that your brain, your donor's brain is swimming in.

If you're. Your fundraising assumes that it's a shallow pond and a calm reader at a quiet desk you've already lost. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah. That significance of [00:45:00] distraction is so huge, so critical. You have to play the game, but you have to be aware of how you're playing the game and be aware that when you are playing the game that as much as you're trying to distract for attention, you are getting distracted by somebody else's efforts.

To draw attention from that same person. 

Cherian Koshy: Yep. 

Jeff Holden: And I, I think it's a significant awareness in terms of the whole process of how you communicate, how you, you actually strategize your outreach through that digital platform. We have to talk on just a couple more questions, if you don't mind. No, please. One of them that's significant is obviously there is an ethical element to all of this.

Yes. And it, it isn't fundraising as well. We know that there are. Manipulative players out there, but in the essence of what the book is about, you do have a chapter on ethical and moral ways to use this tool properly. Mm-hmm. [00:46:00] Talk about that a little bit. What if you put 

Cherian Koshy: Yeah. So I actually argue that fundraisers have a higher ethical mandate than than marketers do.

And the reason I argue that is because. In commercial, like neuromarketing in in the, the neuroscience of marketing and whatnot, which has been around for a while. The question is, is it legal and does it sell? Like does it drive product sales? And if so, you're good. If you're doing that, the customer knows that they're in a marketplace.

They know that they're going to be sold to, and there's a need for the product. So there's. Attend essentially this two-sided understanding, but at the same time. The standards are very, very low on what that, what ethics look like In fundraising. We have a duty, as a fundraiser, we have two duties. One is a duty to the people that are served, the people that our organization [00:47:00] serves, and the mission of our organization.

On the one hand, to raise the money and make sure that the work keeps going. We represent the people that we serve or the, the cause that we serve. Two. The other side of that equation, the second duty, which is to the donors to respect their autonomy and their dignity and their wellbeing, their, you know, the things like their privacy.

So we have to hold those two things in balance. And the fundraising ethicist, Ian McQuillan talks about this as a right balancing approach. So fundraising is ethical if and only if those two things are balanced appropriately. The simple answer here is that. In terms of neuro giving, we know that we are being ethical if we are both transparent about what we are doing and if we are doing it in the best interests of both of these parties, for doing it in the best interest of the, the people that we serve, the cause that we serve of the mission and in the interests of the donors.[00:48:00] 

So when I keep going back in the book to, this is not the way to use the, the science or this is not the way to, uh, we, we don't want to hack the donor brain. There are, um, there are people, especially on the marketing side of, uh, of sales and whatnot that will say, will this brain trick get the most sales?

And if we do that with generosity, there is a short-term opportunity to do that. Absolutely. People can do that and, and get a short-term win out of this, but if they do, it will result in a long-term problem. So I would argue that we can respect. Donors is, ends in them themselves and build long-term trust.

And remember that our job, like Hank Rosso said, is to teach people the joy of giving. And if we do that using the best tools that we have with the highest integrity that we can muster, then the, the brain science gives us a [00:49:00] way to actually shift the dynamics of what generosity has been. Perceived as meaning.

We've always thought that people are not generous and we have to convince them to be generous, but the brain science actually indicates that people are generous and we just have to get out of their way and make it possible for them to do the thing that they most want to do. We teach them the joy of giving, and it's actually quite a bit easier.

Less burden on the part of the fundraiser when we align with the, the neuroscience and the behavioral science. And so that higher obligation actually makes the job of fundraising easier and more fulfilling. 

Jeff Holden: You crossed two concerns. There are two, two items just I I wanna mention this is not a transactional process, right?

This is not a give get. It really is a long-term sustainable trust built [00:50:00] process. Of giving. And the other part of that is I couldn't help but think is I think I'm a financial advisor of some sort. There's a fiduciary responsibility to the client. This is not me getting money for you to buy you stocks or me getting money from you to do whatever it is.

I have a vested interest and a responsibility to steward your donation properly. 

Cherian Koshy: Yes. Absolutely a suitability question here for sure. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah. 

Cherian Koshy: And that, that is the ethical constraint, I would argue that places, uh, uh, the higher responsibility on a fundraiser mm-hmm. And can do things in a ethical way that actually creates a more joyful giver and a better outcome.

Jeff Holden: Yeah. Let's wrap with a couple of things that you see as the future, uh, future of neuro giving. I wanna share a few things that I found particularly pointed and one you addressed pretty well, and that's the attention is the new currency of generosity. Anything else you wanna add to that, that we already, [00:51:00] I know we had already talked about it quite a bit, but anything to, to add to it?

Cherian Koshy: Just that I would say that a lot of, uh, particularly in the age of ai. And don't get me wrong, I'm not a Luddite. I love technology. I've built and sold an AI platform. I, I think that AI is great for some use cases, but some people are talking about flooding the zone, like creating much more content. And what this science indicates, what the book argues for is actually fewer, better, more meaningful touches rather than a ton more content that will create more noise rather than more signal.

So using your. Tools and technology as a system for amplifying generosity rather than starving generosity by choking out the, the signals that you do have. 

Jeff Holden: Thank you so much for that. That is so critical. 'cause people get caught in this content creation. They think more is better and we, we know, we know [00:52:00] for a fact that more is not better.

Right? And, and faster. Isn't necessarily the way to go to grow. That's exactly right. Slow it down. Mm-hmm. Second one, trust can be mediated digitally, but must be earned biologically. That, that to me is such a powerful statement. 

Cherian Koshy: I a hundred percent agree and I, I feel like I'm coming back to AI a lot, but we can use technology a lot to reach people.

That medium is helpful to reach people, for example, that, you know, you and I have never met in person, but this is a great technology to be able to connect with one another, but the brain still evaluates trust on. Very ancient biological cues like consistency and tone of voice and facial expression and responsiveness.

So technology can carry some of those cues, but it can't replace them. So I will go up on a soapbox and say that the future is not AI instead of [00:53:00] humans. AI can make and data can make us more responsive and more relevant, but humans have to be the ones that go the last mile and. Embody the warmth and the empathy and the integrity.

There's no way that AI can listen to someone's story and care about the story, care about who you are as a person and make you feel seen. And that's the piece about identity that we talked about earlier. When a human sees another person's story and makes them feel seen. That's the part that every one of us deeply need and know.

We know when a human reflects that back to us, no robot could ever do that. That's the difference. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah. It's adaptive and inclusive, and [00:54:00] exclusively human. Precisely. Right. Yeah. I, I love it. Neuro giving the science of donor decision making. How do we get the book cherry in? 

Cherian Koshy: You can find it. Wherever books are sold, you will be able to get it anywhere you like to get books.

And we have some bonuses available@neurogivingbook.com. Would love for you to, to get those and, um, and just share the message of the book wherever you can with your teammates, with your community. Just take the content and share it with other organizations that you have in your community or, or other fundraisers.

And spread the, the messages widely as, as far as you can, 

Jeff Holden: well, obviously I want to see this thing become a New York Times bestseller for, for obvious reasons, just because you have been wonderful to work with. And the way that we connected still surprises me because you were just doing some outreach and I said, well, here's some guy with a book and let's go see what it's all about.

And to find. The quality and the caliber and the [00:55:00] character that you are, and the book that the, the content that's in the book is so relative. We're speaking during the holidays and the book released on the ninth. I have told everybody at every function that I've been at, of which there have been many for, you know, the nonprofit space here in Sacramento, to please take a look at this, get it online if you haven't already.

It's that significant and. I'm waiting for the feedback. I cannot wait to get feedback from this episode. I can't thank you enough for allowing us to connect. An onslaught of opportunity for you and I, I'm really excited for that as well. The book is fascinating. It's absolutely outstanding. It's become a tutorial for me on contemporary fundraising, and I am looking forward to that hard copy so I can actually hold it and, and really get into it the way that, uh, I can't do digitally.

I'm just a visceral guy. I've gotta feel it. So I wish to the [00:56:00] best at getting messaging out to our nonprofit communities. And continued success during. Thank you so much. Thank 

Cherian Koshy: you so much. That means so much to hear you say that. And I appreciate it so much. You've, you've been great to, to work with. But also, I mean, those, those words mean so much to me and I'm so, so grateful.

Thank you. 

Jeff Holden: Thank you for listening to the Nonprofit Podcast Network. We hope today's episode inspired you and gave you a deeper look into the work of our local nonprofits, if you believe in our mission to amplify their voices. Please take a moment to leave us a positive review and share this episode with a friend.

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Cherian Koshy: Hi, I'm Cherian Koshi, author of Neuro Giving, the Science of Donor Decision Making. When I wanna learn about local nonprofits, I enjoy choosing an episode from the nonprofit podcast network.