The power of smell in fundraising
- Olav Bouman
- Mar 24
- 2 min read
Whenever I smell cigars, I'm instantly transported back to my childhood. My beloved grandfather was a cigar smoker. As soon as that scent hits my nose, I imagine myself again as a little boy, running through my hometown, holding his strong hand. Or sitting on a stool at his tailor's, watching as a new suit is fitted for him. A warm feeling of comfort and security flows through me.
Change of scene. I'm four years old and have been in the hospital for a few days. In front of me is a plate of meat, potatoes, and beets. I hate beets. The smell is intense, almost intrusive. The nurse tries to force me to eat. "If you don't eat the beets, you won't get ice cream for dessert," she says sternly. I struggle for a moment, but my stubbornness wins. I don't touch them.
My wife and children love beets. Every time I smell them, I'm back at that table as a little boy, and all the conflicting emotions from back then return.
Many of us are familiar with such olfactory triggers. Scents can evoke memories—both pleasant and traumatic. They penetrate the deepest layers of our memory.
But what does this have to do with fundraising?
Smell as a door opener for emotions
If we could harness the power of olfactory memories in fundraising, we would have a powerful tool at our disposal. Because we know that emotions are the key to success.
During my time as Marketing Director at CBM, my colleague Günther Lindemann, his team and I developed a mailing in the late 1990s that specifically appealed to the sense of smell.
Günther had discovered a small sheet of beeswax at an advertising trade fair that could be rolled into a candle using the included wick. The intense scent of beeswax immediately evoked memories of Christmas. It quickly became clear to us: This "candle" had to be included in the next Christmas mailing – in a print run of 300,000!
The supplier was speechless when we placed our order, which weighed tons. But the bigger challenge lay elsewhere: How do you fit 300,000 soft, sticky wax sheets, including the wick, letter, and remittance slip, into an envelope? There was no automated solution. So we leveraged our good contacts with sheltered workshops, which manually assembled the mailing.
A daring, expensive experiment. And then the waiting began.
The scent that aroused emotions – and donations
Even before the first payments arrived, the phones at our headquarters were ringing off the hook. Recipients wanted more candles! And then the donations started pouring in. The mailing became one of the most successful we'd ever done.
Our instincts were not wrong: the scent of real beeswax evoked in people the feeling of a time when wax candles dominated the Christmas spirit.
Smells aren't always easy to incorporate into fundraising—sometimes even impossible. But it's worth considering.
Do you have other ideas for using smells in fundraising? Share your thoughts in the comments.
If you want to delve deeper into the topic, you can find an exciting article from Harvard Medicine here : https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/connections-between-smell-memory-and-health
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