Is your fundraising trapped in the pathetic fallacy?

The pathetic fallacy isn’t nearly as insulting a term as it might sound: It’s a term for ascribing human thoughts or emotions to inanimate things. (As in “I wandered lonely as a cloud.” Clouds aren’t lonely. Read the definition here on Wikipedia.)

In fundraising, the pathetic fallacy is the tendency to ascribe your thoughts or emotions to your donors. In fundraising, a moral element is sometimes is added: Donors should share our thoughts and feelings.

In poetry, the pathetic fallacy a good thing (usually). In fundraising, it’s usually a disaster.

You, as a professional in fundraising, are almost as different from a donor as a poet is different from cloud. Your thoughts, your experience, your relationship with the cause, and (probably) your demographic/psychographic profile are all different from your donors’.

The moment you do (or don’t do) something in fundraising because it would appeal (or not appeal) to you, you are on shaky ground. Almost guaranteed

And it really isn’t any better when you go to your spouse, your co-workers, or your friends. That’s like asking your canary, “Does this cat food taste good?”

Don’t create messages that you believe would motivate you. Seek to understand your donors, and create messages for them. In fact, your most effective fundraising will most likely feel strange to you. Because it’s not aimed at you. That wouldn’t persuade me may be a true statement, but it’s not relevant.

Once you free yourself from the fundraising pathetic fallacy, you can learn to appreciate donor-focused messages. And that’s when you become free to do truly great work.