Most fundraising has a biology problem.
I was working with a nonprofit last week on an appeal they’re putting together for an upcoming campaign.
The problem they’re solving is enormous, impacting millions of people. And I was encouraging them to set the scale aside for the first few appeals and really focus in on the story of just one person.
They did not agree, but their pushback was reasonable, sincere, and completely logical.
While not a direct quote, their point was, “If people truly understood how big this problem is, they’d be motivated to give. The size of the need is the point. Why would we downplay it?”
Again, reasonable and logical. I’ve heard it before, and I’ve believed it before.
Early on in my time at Water4, we leaned hard into the scope of the global water crisis in our messaging. The numbers were staggering (still are) and they were real, and we figured that if we could just help people understand the scale of what we were fighting, generosity would follow.
It made perfect logical sense.
It also did not work (at least not as well as what we eventually ended up doing).
At some point, instead of leading with the enormity of the crisis, we started trying to lead with the story of one person affected by a lack of safe water.
We started sharing stories about one child, one mom, or one dad whose life was impacted in a negative way by a lack of safe water.
When we did that, our fundraising improved.
And though I couldn’t tell you why at the time, I knew that shrinking our problem worked better than leading with big numbers.
Now I know why.
It turns out raising money to solve BIG problems has a biology problem.
The human brain is hardwired for empathy, and empathy is one of the most powerful drivers of generosity. This is not the problem.
When we genuinely tune in to another person’s need, something shifts in us, and we become motivated to help, often with no expectation of anything in return.
But that wiring was designed for small numbers. It was designed for one face, one name, one story we can follow.
For most of human history, that was fine because up until a hundred or so years ago, the vast majority of people on earth only ever knew or interacted with a small handful of people.
Our brains were not designed to process the weight of a million people suffering at once.
And when we lead with the enormity of a problem, we don’t inspire action. We trigger a shutdown because a donor’s brain does the only thing it can do with information it can’t process… it stops.
That’s why the appeal that opens with “every year, 600,000 people experience homelessness in America” often raises less than the one that introduces a single person named Marcus who slept in his car for four months before finding help.
It’s not that statistics are wrong. The data matters, but data alone rarely moves people to give because it’s biologically impossible to empathize with a number.
On the other hand, the human mind is almost perfectly wired to empathize with another person. Thanks to advances in modern neuroimaging, we now know that individual stories activate regions of the brain associated with empathy and the motivation to act, in ways that statistics about groups simply don’t trigger.
Or more plainly, when we can actually see the person behind a problem, our natural generosity kicks in, and we are more likely to act than when presented with a nameless, faceless crowd of people.
In fundraising, we call this shrinking the problem.
And if you don’t do it, you’re likely working against your own fundraising without realizing it.
The good news?
Shrinking the problem is REALLY easy.
Instead of asking people to solve world hunger, all you have to do is invite them to feed one family for a month.
Instead of presenting the full scope of homelessness, show them what it costs to give one person a safe place to sleep tonight.
Shrinking the problem isn’t a communication trick, it’s not dumbing things down, and it’s not dishonest about the scale of what you’re fighting.
It’s simply working with, not against, the way human brains are actually designed.
When you put one face to your cause … one name or one story with a beginning, middle, and a hopeful ending a donor might play a role in, you flip a switch that makes empathy possible.
And when empathy is possible, generosity becomes way more likely.
So before you write your next appeal or sit down for your next donor conversation, ask yourself, “Who is the one person at the center of the story I’m inviting them into?”
If it’s not one person, keep working. Don’t stop at “the families we serve” or “communities in need.” Keep shrinking until you get down to one real person if you can, or a composite if you must.
Give that person a name, put them in a moment, and invite donors to step in and help the story end well.
That’s empathy.
And it turns out, empathy is exactly what our brains need to feel in order to give.
Happy Friday, friends.
-Michael
