When they say your fundraising is “too emotional”

If you’ve written fundraising for more than a few months, you’ve no doubt encountered the objection to your writing:

It’s too emotional.

Often, that’s the whole critique. As if “emotional” is self-evidently a bad quality in fundraising writing.

Sometimes the too-emotional comment is accompanied by an exaggerated “yuck” face. (Arguments against emotion are often strikingly emotional.)

If the critique goes deeper, it’ll often be that the emotional writing is “manipulative” or even “dishonest.”

You may not have the authority to override the people who don’t want fundraising to be emotional. But you should.

Because fundraising that lacks emotion is not really fundraising.

Here’s a helpful thought on that from the Better Fundraising blog, at It’s OK to Write Fundraising That’s Emotional:

When you write emotionally, you’re not manipulating your donors. You’re reminding them why they care. The reasons they got involved in the first place were emotional – and the most respectful thing you can do is meet them in the same place they entered from.

The human mind is innately emotional. We make most of our decisions primarily with our emotions. Our rational thoughts sometimes come in an override those emotional decisions — often for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Manipulation and dishonesty are different issues entirely. You can use those without engaging emotions at all. And however you use them, it’s unethical. Even evil.

But the the evil doesn’t flow from emotion. Emotion is the engine that drives fundraising.