Have you ever been approached by someone on your staff or your board who wants you to take it easy on the emotion of your fundraising because they feel that emotion is dishonest or manipulative?
You may have been asked to just talk about the facts because making a rational case with facts and numbers is the only honorable way to motivate people to donate.
It’s my opinion that the person who wants you to stick strictly to the facts hasn’t ever been in love or held a newborn baby or watched a sunset.
Emotional information is meaningful. In some ways, it’s a lot more meaningful than statistics and facts.
You can lie and manipulate with statistics just as well as you can with emotions. It’s your duty to tell the truth in any situation, and always to treat your donors with respect.
But you can’t raise money effectively just using facts and statistics. That’s not how the human brain processes things. And assuming your donors will respond to a message that doesn’t give them goosebumps, or tears, or an elevated heartbeat…that’s just not living in the real world.
So be as emotional as you can teach yourself to be when you raise funds.
It’s the most honest way to work.