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This episode is brought to you by GivingTuesday! GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement that started in 2012 with a simple idea: a day to do good.

This year, on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, join the conversation: share your favorite nonprofit’s campaign, volunteer for a cause you care about, share an act of kindness, or encourage your audience to do the same.

Use #GivingTuesday, tag @GivingTuesday, and visit GivingTuesday.org/Participate to get involved and inspire others!

Improve Direct Mail Performance Using Behavioral Science & Personality Traits with Kevin Schulman

This year, my mailbox turned into a fundraising experiment.

After I shared a post on LinkedIn about why so much nonprofit direct mail fails to connect—especially for digitally native donors—organizations started sending me their mail. A lot of mail.

I analyzed more than 50 pieces. Most of it looked similar: trifold letters, plain envelopes, emotional stories, and quick asks. Some were heavy on urgency, others tried to be heartfelt. But almost all were missing one crucial element, they weren’t speaking to me as a person.

That’s when behavioral science expert Kevin Schulman, Founder of Donor Voice, jumped into the conversation and shared something fascinating: a direct mail test run with Charity: Water that challenged the way we all think about mail, personalization, and donor engagement.

And what they discovered is a game-changer.

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The Charity: Water Direct Mail Experiment and Why It Wasn’t Actually About Mail

Charity: Water is known for its beautiful digital storytelling and strong branding. They had never used direct mail before. But they wanted to test something very specific:

Would a physical piece of mail deepen engagement, even if people didn’t mail anything back?

The surprising answer: Yes.

Even though fewer than five donors physically mailed back a check, direct mail still lifted overall revenue by 1.5–2% because people received the mail, felt more connected, and then took action online, became monthly givers, or re-engaged digitally.

In other words:

Direct mail didn’t spark offline giving.
It sparked deeper digital giving.

But here’s where it gets even more interesting.

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They Didn’t Send Everyone the Same Letter

Most organizations segment based on recency, giving level, or campaign behavior. But Charity: Water tested segmentation based on personality traits, using the Big Five (OCEAN) psychological traits, specifically Agreeableness and Openness.

By analyzing consumer data and giving behavior, donors were tagged with dominant personality indicators, allowing the team to send tailored messages based on who donors are, not just what they’ve given.

Here’s what they discovered:

Different personalities respond to different messaging.

Agreeable donors: warm, relational, collaborative—responded best to mail that felt human, emotionally sincere, and personal.
Open donors: creative, big-picture thinkers—responded better to visually appealing mail, storytelling, and conceptual framing.

Some donors preferred a heartfelt letter.
Others preferred a simple, visually gorgeous postcard.
Some needed relational tone.
Others wanted mission clarity and innovation.

The channel wasn’t the key factor.
The messaging style was.

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Direct Mail Works But Not Always How We Think

The real value of direct mail isn’t always a check coming back in an envelope.

It’s about:

• Capturing attention in a distracted digital world
• Deepening a sense of commitment and loyalty
• Nudging donors back into digital engagement
• Influencing how they think and feel about your organization

And the most important part?

Donors don’t always give through the channel that persuaded them.

A donor might read your letter at the kitchen counter…
But give online on their phone later that day.

If you’re only measuring direct mail success by check returns, you may be measuring the wrong thing altogether.

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Personalization Isn’t Enough. We Need Psychological Alignment.

We’ve been trained to believe personalization means inserting a first name in an email or referencing last year’s gift.

But this test points to something deeper:

• Personalization is about making communication feel familiar.
• Psychological alignment is about making communication feel relevant and motivating.

That’s the difference.

It’s no longer about what we say, it’s about how donors experience what we say.

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Final Takeaway: Donor Communication Is Entering Its Next Era

This charity: water experiment didn’t prove that postcards or letters are superior.

It proved something bigger:

• When your message aligns with a donor’s personality and motivation style, everything works better, online or offline.
• Direct mail isn’t dying. It’s evolving.
• And the organizations willing to think differently, about attention, motivation, and experience, will quietly outperform everyone else.

Resources & Links

Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn and learn more about DonorVoice on their website.

Check out the book I’m currently reading, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect, by Will Guidara.

This show is brought to you by GivingTuesday! GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement that started in 2012 with a simple idea: a day to do good.

On Tuesday, December 2, 2025, join the conversation: share your favorite nonprofit’s campaign, volunteer for a cause you care about, share an act of kindness, or encourage your audience to do the same.

Use #GivingTuesday, tag @GivingTuesday, and visit GivingTuesday.org/Participate to get involved and inspire others!

My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.

Join The Sustainers, my Slack community for nonprofit professionals growing and scaling a recurring giving program.

Want to make Missions to Movements even better? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram. Be sure to tag @positivequation so I can connect with you.