Equivalency Language

12 May Equivalency Language

12 May 2026

By David Allen, Development for Conservation

One year with TNC, we ran a campaign to buy a piece of property. I don’t remember the actual numbers, but we divided the total left to be raised by the number of acres protected and came up with some number. Then we divided THAT number by ten and mailed an appeal based on the idea that for every $$ you gave, TNC could buy another tenth of an acre.

The appeal itself was successful, and we raised the money we needed.

We probably should have predicted the call from the wisecracker who wanted to know exactly where the tenth of an acre HE bought was on the map.

Somewhat more seriously, we were warned by the auditors that all of that money was technically restricted, and that we would have had to return some of it if we had raised more than we needed.

OK, so lesson learned.

I get variations of this question every year. What about attaching “impact” to each level of membership? Like $35 puts gas in the stewardship truck and $100 pays for native restoration seed?

That strategy has a name – Equivalency Language. A certain amount of money is equivalent to a certain specific impact. And it works really well as an emotional trigger, because it sends a great message to the donor. My gift will make a difference. I am an important part of an important effort.

The caveat is that equivalency language should be legitimate, and that means it probably shouldn’t be used for levels of membership. Assigning equivalency to an ask string of $35, $100, $250, $500 and Other will ALWAYS be forced and gimmicky, and it will come across that way. My tenth-acre experience was closer to legitimate. The amount we were asking for was an actual calculation based on real project costs.

Passionate Giving blog by Veritus Group posted about equivalency language recently. Their point was that nonprofits use equivalency language for small dollar fundraising, but don’t use it for mid-level and major gifts. I agree. And they had some useful tips about how to avoid turning the entire campaign into a restricted gift campaign. It’s worth reading the full post, but here’s the gist.

• Start with the full costs of a specific program or project

For example: Say your full stewardship budget is $142,000 this year

• Find one or several program related data points

For example:

83 easements to monitor over a

6-week period totaling

257 acres

• Do the math to find equivalency at several different levels

For example:

$142,000/6 = $23,600 provides easement monitoring for one week

$12,000/83 = $1,710 provides easement monitoring for one conservation easement

$142,000/257 = $552 helps the land trust monitor one acre of conserved property

• And use language that avoids the trap of making the gifts restricted

For example:

To help illustrate the impact of your gift this year, $$$ is the equivalent of …

The generous gift of $$$ you gave us in March is roughly the equivalent of …

Your generous gift of $$$ equates to …

On average, it costs the land trust approximately $$$ each year to …

As a general rule, donors feel more comfortable giving more when they know how their gifts will be used. As the value of the gift goes up, this impulse to control its use goes up as well. Vertitus quotes studies that show that the feeling of control created by the option to restrict is just as high whether or not they actually choose to restrict their gift.

Equivalency language evokes the same sense of control for a donor. It helps donors at all levels understand the impact of their giving. That their gifts DO make a difference.

Using equivalency language for special appeals and project funding can be very useful, and not just at low-dollar levels. Using equivalency language for membership levels is forced and gimmicky.

And it comes across that way.

Cheers, and Have a great week!

-da

PS: Your comments on these posts are welcomed and warmly requested. If you have not posted a comment before, or if you are using a new email address, please know that there may be a delay in seeing your posted comment. That’s my SPAM defense at work. I approve all comments as soon as I am able during the day.

Photo by plantsandanimals1 courtesy of Pixabay.