A Reminder of Love That Changed Everything
On 3 March 2026, Tassy Serradura, Fundraising Manager at Animal Welfare League South Australia (SA), Sam Jacklin, CEO at Animal Welfare League Queensland, and Dr. Jen Shang presented at the For the Paws conference in a session titled “It’s Not Just About the Money: Cultivating Deeper Donor Relationships Through the Lens of Love.”
Over this four-part blog series, we will explore how Tassy and Sam have guided Animal Welfare League SA on a PhilPsych journey: discovering what it truly means to experience donors’ love and to embed that understanding across their teams, executives, and governing boards.
Through their sustained application of Philanthropic Psychology, their organisations have achieved an average 20% increase in gift value across repeated A/B tests, alongside a 26% reduction in Return-to-Sender rate. While response rates have remained stable, these outcomes translated into a 20% rise in total income and, perhaps more importantly, a more loyal and engaged donor community.
The series will cover:
Blog 2: A Reminder of Love That Changed Everything
Blog 3:A Plan for Rigorous Testing
Blog 4: Turning the Enemy into Friends
In Blog 1: Our Donors Love Us, So We Need to Love Them Back, we shared how Sam and Tassy found new vocabulary to describe a profound shift in how they think and feel about their work: a shift they sensed deeply but hadn’t been able to articulate before discovering Philanthropic Psychology.
Sam said, “This is my ‘why.’ Our donors already love us, it’s our responsibility to love them back.”
Tassy added, “As custodians of donor money, we are responsible for spending it wisely and efficiently. But we are also custodians of their hearts, and that is an even greater responsibility.”
So, how did they bring this way of thinking into their organisation and create a truly whole-organisation approach to loving their donors back?
They began by getting to know their donors better.
Getting to know your donors beyond satisfaction trust and commitment
Using a donor survey that went beyond traditional drivers of loyalty, satisfaction, trust, and commitment, they explored their donors’ identities, how giving enhanced their psychological well-being, and, most importantly, how donors felt about giving. This scientific approach placed the fundraising team on equal footing with their program colleagues, who apply research and evidence to their animal care work.
The results were powerful. The findings suggested they could grow giving by at least 10% through very simple changes in their communications.
But instead of simply presenting the data to leadership, Sam wanted to ignite a deeper conversation: to re-ignite a feeling of love and connection in the boardroom itself. She wanted the board to feel what donors feel.
Help the Board Feel the Love, Not Just Understand It
Rather than leading with facts and figures, she opened her presentation to the board with a musical video built from thematically analysed donor quotes of their survey.
“I remember seeing the chair of the board literally in tears as she watched it,” Sam recalled. “Suddenly, there was this different feeling in the boardroom.”
That emotional shift changed everything.
“Because quite often, as we know,” Sam said, “board discussions can become all about dollars, dollars, dollars. We all understand that we need those dollars to make our work happen, but we must always bring it back to the humans who make that possible.”
Listening to donors’ words reminded everyone what truly sits at the centre of their mission.
“Even in the animal sector, people give to people. They care about our causes, but ultimately, it’s all about love.”
Create An Organisational Shift with Patience
Once the boardroom was moved by love, Sam’s consistent A/B testing successes found fertile ground. That momentum helped rally the rest of the organisation, from program services to marketing, to align their communications with the same language of care and connection.
“We can’t have our donors feel loved by fundraising,” Sam explained, “and then have them experience something different when they visit our website or adoption centres. It has to be a whole-organisation approach.”
Change didn’t happen overnight. It took years for the organisation to grow fully comfortable with this culture of love, because breaking old habits takes time.
Their donor research suggested small but meaningful ways to express love more deeply in communications.
For example:
Instead of saying on the homepage:
“Find your perfect match today!”
They could say:
“Fall in love with your new furry friend today…”
or
“Healed by compassionate and caring people like you who love to say, ‘We’ll be together forever.’”
Instead of on the donation form:
“Will you make a kind donation to help animals in need, just like Linus?”
They could say:
“Together, our adoration and sacrifice for these furry friends fill lives with love!”
Instead of opening a fundraising letter with:
“Juliet was covered in dirt, her fur was matted, and she was so hungry.”
They could say:
“Care washes the dirt from her matted fur.
Kindness eases the ache in her hungry tummy.
Compassion brings the light back to her beautiful eyes.
When incredible people like you go out of their way to be kind, Juliet knows what it feels like to be treasured.
Join other animal lovers today and fill loyal lives with love.”
For many organisations, this change can feel counterintuitive. If the organisation is used to being the “hero”, the one saving animals and finding them homes, sharing that spotlight with donors can feel uncomfortable.
If the organisation is used to talking about how animals are suffering, but not featuring the loving humans embracing them, shifting that storytelling can feel uncomfortable.
Yet that discomfort is not necessarily because the new communications approach is wrong, but because it’s unfamiliar. As people gain familiarity of this way of communications, comfort will grow.
As Sam said, creating organisational change takes hard work. But it’s worth it, because when donors love us, we must find a way to love them back.
Sam, Tassy, and their team succeeded at Animal Welfare League SA. Their commitment to a love-centered approach delivered measurable results: achieving an average 20% increase in giving over three years after implementing PhilPsych-inspired changes to their communications.
And now how Sam is preparing to take Animal Welfare League Queensland on the same journey as CEO.
What are some of the tests that they did?
We explore those in the next Blog - Blog 3: APlan for Rigorous Testing.