Can a raccoon teach us how to get people to give more frequently?

Since the start of the year I’ve spent over 100 hours catching fish, collecting shells and trading turnips.

As a result I’ve become the richest person in my village, paid off my house in full and set aside more money than I’ll ever be able to spend.

Yet every day I head back out with my net and fishing rod – catching, collecting, trading.

It’s time to admit I’ve got a problem.

This unlikely rags to riches story started when my daughter got ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ for Christmas. If you’re not familiar with the Animal Crossing series of computer games, they’re sort of a cross between The Sims, Pokemon and RollerCoaster Tycoon. Players design a character and head off to start a new life on a desert island. While there they have to catch fish, sea creatures and bugs, collect art and fossils for the local museum (long story…), interact with other villagers and trade turnips on the island’s Stork Market – all the while earning Bells (the island’s currency) to build, furnish and expand their home.

It’s simple. It’s laid back.

And it’s addictive as hell.

I soon realised I’d developed a strong compulsion to play every day, and that each session lasted a lot longer than I’d intended as I was seemingly incapable of turning the game off.

So what was it that made this supposedly sensible adult, with a real-world ‘to do’ list longer than his arm, log so many hours on a frankly pointless endeavour?

What techniques had the game’s designers used to get me to return day after day?

And, if they could get me to invest so much time and effort in something I didn’t really care about, could those same techniques theoretically make the infinitely more meaningful act of donating similarly “addictive”?

Here are four of the ingredients Animal Crossing uses to keep players motivated and coming back, and some thoughts on what they might look like in a fundraising context:

A lot of the game play in Animal Crossing revolves around catching bugs, fish and sea creatures. Players are tasked with collecting all 200 species of animal, which can then be sold to earn Bells.

However, unlike other hunter-gatherer games, you can’t just go and look for specific animals. Fish and sea creatures only appear as shadows in the water, meaning you have no idea what creature is in front of you until you’ve reeled it in. So, as you stroll along the beach, that small fish-shaped shadow could be a common Horse Mackerel worth 150 Bells, or a rare Barreleye worth 15,000 Bells. The only way to know is to catch it.

Is that shadowy fish common plaice or a bank-bulging Blue Marlin? There’s only one way to find out!

The game serves up a steady stream of mysterious shadows meaning every 10-15 seconds players face a dilemma – do I walk away and risk missing out on a rare fish, or do I spend a few extra seconds catching “just one more” in the hope of a big pay day?

Why does this keep players hooked?

​This is an example of “Variable Reward”, a concept first described by psychologist BF Skinner in the 1950s. Skinner’s experiment involved putting rats in a box with a lever that would dispense food. For some of the rats, pressing the lever would provide a regular and predictable supply of food. For the others, the outcome of pressing the level was unpredictable – sometimes they’d get a small piece of food, other times a large piece of food and sometimes nothing at all. For those rats receiving a variable reward, the act of pressing the lever became compulsive. They would press the lever more frequently than the rats receiving a predictable reward, often continuing after they were full.

Research shows that the desire for, and anticipation of, a reward can be far more powerful a motivator than the reward itself. The anticipation and unpredictability of when we’ll get the reward we’re seeking leads to spikes in our levels of dopamine, making us far more likely to keep playing. (This same principle is what makes slot machines so addictive).

So, could Variable Rewards motivate people to give more frequently?

For a Variable Reward system to be effective, three things must be in place:

• there must be the promise of a reward that your target audience finds desirable. These rewards don’t need to be tangible. In his book “Hooked”, Nir Eyal shows that social rewards (where your target audience is made to feel valued and respected by their peers) and internal rewards (self gratification or self-improvement) can be just as powerful as tangible rewards.
• the “pay out rate” must be unpredictable.
• The target audience must believe that the reward is within their reach

One possible implementation for donors who like learning about your work would be if random donations made via your website unlocked bonus content, behind-the-scenes insights, or an exclusive message from someone your target audience admires.

The National Museum of Scotland used a variation of this as part of their contactless donation journey back in 2016 – visitors making a donation were rewarded with one of sixshort videos featuring members of the curatorial team talking about their favourite objects in the collection – https://blog.nms.ac.uk/2017/07/27/making-contact-digital-experiments-with-visitor-donations/

One of the ways Animal Crossing encourages players to log on every day is through FOMO – or, more accurately, through scarcity:

• The range of items on sale in the island’s shop changes on a daily basis.

• Each day a rotating cast of guests make fleeting visits to the island, bringing time-limited challenges and exclusive rewards with them.

• Many of the island’s resources have a daily allowance that will be lost if not claimed.

Continuing the theme of Variable Reward from above, the order in which shop items and guest visitors appear is completely random, meaning that if you miss their appearance there’s no knowing when they’ll next return.

Why does this keep players hooked?

These artificial time limits reflect two powerful motivating factors:

Scarcity Bias – we perceive things to be more valuable when they are in limited supply (either through the quantity available or the time during which they’re available)

Loss Aversion – we feel the negative emotional impact of losing something more strongly than the positive emotional impact of finding something of the same value. As a result, we are more likely to take action to prevent loss than we are to achieve positive gains.

If I don’t buy that astronaut’s helmet today there’s no knowing when it will next be available!

What might scarcity bias and loss aversion look like in fundraising?

One of the most common uses of scarcity bias in fundraising is in match-giving campaigns. Here, scarcity is created by either having a limited pot of match-funding that multiple organisations are competing for, or a limited amount of time in which gifts can be matched. The risk that the opportunity to have their gift matched might be lost can be a powerful motivating factor.

But that’s not the only way scarcity could be used.

Perhaps you can have a limit to the number of people who can claim a specific reward as part of a crowd-funding campaign?

Or, if you are incentivising people to give, the nature of the reward could change on a daily basis?

Or, if you are running a Giving Circle, Syndicate or membership scheme, perhaps there could be a limit to the number of people who can join to harness the power of scarcity?

Whenever you log on to Animal Crossing you are given five mini tasks to complete. These are simple activities that can be completed quickly, such as “catch five fish”, “speak to three villagers” and “water the flowers”. Once completed, you are rewarded with Miles (another form of in-game currency).

However, your ‘to do’ list doesn’t stop there. As soon as you complete one task and claim your reward it is immediately replaced with a new task. This means that you always have five incomplete tasks on the go.

I would have cleaned the bathroom but a raccoon told me to chop wood

Why does this keep players hooked?

Most people aren’t short of things on their real-world ‘to do’ list, so a virtual raccoon popping up with a never-ending list of chores should be the last thing we want. Yet these mini-tasks are one of the ways the game keeps you playing after you’ve logged in.

There are two reasons this is an effective way of extending our playing time:

The Zeigarnik Effect – our brains don’t like unfinished tasks. We recall unfinished tasks more easily than finished ones, creating a sense of tension and discomfort.

Completion Bias – by contrast, completing tasks is believed to release dopamine – a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure.

It is no accident that these tasks in Animal Crossing are quick and easy to complete. This never-ending ‘to do’ list presents players with a perpetual cycle of “task tension” and easily accessible dopamine fixes to keep them playing.

So, how might completion bias be used in fundraising?

One way is to ensure your online donation page includes a clear indicator of how much of the process you have completed. This is increasingly common for online checkout pages. (And, as we’ll see below, this should make it clear that you’ve already completed the first stage).

Similarly, showing people what percentage of their CRM profile has been completed could motivate them to fill in the gaps, helping you to capture missing information.

Or perhaps your confirmation page could include a number of small follow-on actions for donors to take, such as sharing the campaign with a friend, completing a short survey about why they chose to donate today, and subscribing to your mailing list. Ensure that the design makes it clear that the donation has been completed but the other tasks remain “to do”. (This is common on most online petition platforms, where supporters are asked to share the petition with their network and make a small donation).

While the inclusion of short, simple tasks extends the amount of time people spend playing on any given occasion, Animal Crossing also uses bigger challenges to ensure people keep coming back days, weeks and even months later.

It does this using a staple of gamification – the use of badges and stamps to mark the completion of challenges and milestones.

In total, there are 96 challenges to complete, each represented with a virtual loyalty card. As players complete certain activities and reach different milestones a stamp is added to the relevant card. While the first stamps are relatively easy to acquire, they get exponentially harder. (For example, on a stamp card relating to fishing the player receives the first stamp after catching 10 fish, the second after 100, then 500, then 2,000, then 5,000.)

Just another 1,834 fish to catch before that precious final stamp is mine!

Why does this keep players hooked?

In a game with no end point – or where the end point is a long way in the future – achievement milestones help to keep players motivated. This is another use of the completion bias discussed above, but there are also two other factors at play:

​Sunk cost fallacy – this is the psychological principle that we are more likely to continue an activity or behaviour if we’ve already invested time, effort or money, even if that behaviour or activity is no longer enjoyable or beneficial. Having already spent time collecting early stamps we are more likely to continue in order to complete the card, so as not to waste that previous effort.

Endowed progress effect – In most cases, players aren’t told what the challenges are until they receive the first stamp. As a result, the first stamp feels like a gift. In psychology, the endowed progress effect means we are more likely to complete a task if we believe we’ve made progress towards that goal, even if that progress comes as the result of a headstart or artificial boost. This was identified by Joseph Nunes and Xavier Dreze, who experimented with two versions of a car wash loyalty card – one that required 8 stamps to unlock a free car wash where none of the stamps were filled in, and one that required 10 stamps but where two has been pre-stamped. Despite both cards representing the same real-term offer (collect 8 stamps and get a free car wash), those receiving the pre-stamped card were more likely to complete their card.

So, what might endowed progress and the sunk cost fallacy look like in fundraising?

You might want to remind people of the impact their previous gifts have had, positioning future gifts as protecting the progress they have made to date. (This is a core component of a lot of legacy fundraising messaging, such as this campaign from Greenpeace)

Perhaps you could recognise people for achieving certain milestones relating to the number and cumulative total of gifts?

Or perhaps you could offer challenges, such as donating to support different aspects of your organisation’s work, or for updating their contact details?

I’d love to hear any suggestions you’ve got, or any examples of ways you are already using some of these approaches in your fundraising.