When you build a new donation page on WinRed, the platform starts with a default set of donation amounts ranging from $25 to the election maximum of $3,300 and most campaigns leave them as is. But it’s one of the defaults you should change because you might be leaving donations and dollars on the table.
In a previous article, we covered the features WinRed offers that help campaigns raise more money online. Now we’re going deeper into a specific lever – the donation amounts themselves.
The Science
The numbers your prospective donor sees on your landing page matter more than you’d think. Behavioral economists call this the anchoring effect. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky documented in a 1974 paper and it reappears in the book Thinking, Fast and Slow. Anchoring is automatic and largely unconscious.
They demonstrated this effect with an experiment where museum visitors were asked to make a donation. Prospective donors were given either no suggested amount, $5, or $400. Without any dollar amount anchor, the average donation was around $64. Among those primed with $5, the average dropped to $20 and those who were asked for $400, the average jumped to $143.
Other research has found that high anchors can lift the average gift among those who give but reduce the number of people who give at all. So the donation amounts you display on a donation page have a tangible impact on the quantity and amount of contributions your campaign receives.
Examples From The Trail
Perhaps the most well-known example of strategic anchoring comes from Bernie Sanders’ $27. He mentioned the figure constantly in 2016, and his campaign reported that average contributions came in right around that amount. Ten years later, $27 is one of the default amounts on his ActBlue page.
The Trump campaign also used anchoring with its WinRed page displaying $47 for the 47th President. The amount wasn’t arbitrary, told a story, and gave donors a specific reason to pick that button.
Even earlier, the Obama 2008 campaign pioneered the $3 ask combined with incentives like dinner with Obama or a celebrity basketball game.
While all of these campaigns picked different numbers, none of them used what was already on the page.
Dynamic Amounts From WinRed
WinRed’s Dynamic Amounts lets you set rules that change the donation buttons based on who the donor is if they’re already logged in. For example, a donor who average gift is $250 will see a different set of buttons than a donor whose first gift was $15. The platform can multiply each donor’s average contribution, their most recent contribution, or a baseline you set so the amounts displayed are personalized based on their history.
Setting Your Default Amounts
For donors who aren’t logged in or are new, your default amounts still matter. Most campaigns inherit defaults tuned for maxout giving, weighted heavily toward high amounts and apply them to traffic that includes a lot of small-dollar prospects. This decision is undoubtedly costing donations and dollars.
An easy rule to follow is determine your average gift per channel (website, email, SMS, ads) and then set an equal number of amounts below and above that number. If your average email donation is $35, set your options to $10, $25, $35, $50 and $100.
According to WinRed’s own data, small-dollar donors are giving more frequently than ever, about 11 times on average in 2024. Meeting them with amounts that match their capacity is how you keep them giving.
Conclusion
The default donation amounts on your WinRed page are a starting point. Customize them around your donors and ensure Dynamic Amounts are enabled. Campaigns that treat their donation amounts as a strategic decision will raise more money from more donors.