Positive and Negative Framing

When it comes to fundraising messaging, which delivers better results: doom and gloom? Or hope? There are many academic studies on behavioral biases, but there is not an overwhelming body of research when it comes to the impact of positive versus negative spin specifically on charitable giving. 

Positive & Negative Framing

Positive and negative framing is very much like that proverbial glass. Positive framing focuses on benefits and gains, creating positive feelings. Negative focuses on, well, negative: losing something, fear of scarcity, and pain avoidance.

In nonprofit terms, do you focus on the positive impact of donations – how your generosity will solve the problem, how many hungry children can be fed because of your contribution? Or do you spotlight the negative consequences of inaction, those same children going hungry? These positive and negative statements are reinforced with photos and videos that convey either hope and potential or dire consequences.

Dollars and Cents: Does Positive or Negative Raise More Money?

Are donors more likely to open their hearts and wallets when faced with people in need, rather than happy, healthy beneficiaries? Many fundraising professionals believe that to be the case. Super-smart psychologists agree. Loss aversion bias often drives our decisions. Even if potential loss and gained benefits are similar, our reaction to loss is more extreme. Loss of $10 hurts about x2 as much as finding $10 will make you feel good. 

While the evidence is not overwhelming, this lends tepid support to negative framing over positive in order to engage sympathy and spur action. Another study showed that describing blood donations as a way to ‘prevent death’ rather than ‘save a life’ increased donation rates.

Impactful Messaging and Ethics

Ever more heart-wrenching stories to make the budget? Sad photos touched up to make faces seem more dramatic and tragic? This is where fundraising and mission delivery face tension in their equally valid desires to maximize revenue and convey values. 

On one hand, as fundraisers, it is our job to raise funds for the mission. If negative framing, refraining from manipulation, of course, raises much-needed funds that will help the constituencies we serve, isn’t it the right thing to do? From the programmatic POV, do we owe it to our subjects to show them with dignity and not as objects of sympathy? Absolutely. 

These questions are simple enough in principle, but more nuanced in practice. Type of mission matters as does timing. I would assert that it more acceptable to message and depict dire situations (negative framing) when things are in fact dire, like in cases of emergency relief appeals.

Final Take-Aways with a Pollyanish Spin

Negative framing can still be tasteful and dignified. However, it is not a prerequisite to fundraising success. The evidence in favor of negative framing is not sweeping. In these recent years we are looking for positives and hope shines bright. 

• Trust your gut. You know it when you see it and if your negative spin feels uncomfortable, make adjustments to your messaging. 
• It is possible to show subjects as both worthy of sympathy and also as succeeding and overcoming. Portraying both real human vulnerability and dignity mitigates the ethical qualms. 
• We are all fundraisers. We are all mission. Stepping back to consider messaging from an ethical standpoint, rather than a departmental lens to produce effective, resonant messaging even if the frame is a negative one. 

Lastly… I would be remiss not to mention a noteworthy example that does both with the positive and negative framing, using the reverse approach: starting from a peaceful place and then deteriorating along with the subject’s circumstances. Save the Children’s Most Shocking One Second a Day video demonstrates both the humanity of a thriving child and the dire need to help the vulnerable.

References:
Kahneman, Daniel, (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Rogare, The Fundraising Think Tank. NEWS: How ought beneficiary stories be told? Evidence gives ‘tentative’ support to negative framing. https://criticalfundraising.com/2018/05/21/272/ 

Chou, Eileen, & Murnighan, Keith J., (2013). Life or Death Decisions: Framing the Call for Help. Plos One https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0057351