Fundraising stories or statistics? Science weighs in

Effective fundraising communications touches the emotions to engage the intellect. We want to move and motivate people.

Here’s a Harvard Business Review article titled Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling:

“Many business people have already discovered the power of
storytelling in a practical sense – they have observed how compelling a well-constructed narrative can be. But recent scientific work is putting a much finer point on just how stories change our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors….

“By taking blood draws before and after the narrative, we found that character-driven stories do consistently cause oxytocin synthesis.” [Oxytocin is a neurochemical that motivates us to cooperate.] “Further, the amount of oxytocin released by the brain predicted how much people were willing to help others; for example, donating money to a charity associated with the narrative.”

Stories do that.  Statistics don’t.

https://hbr.org/2014/10/why-your-brain-loves-good-storytelling/