Emotions in fundraising

A few years ago, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio made a ground breaking discovery.  He studied people with damage in the part of the brain where emotions are generated. His work found that they seemed normal, except that they were not able to feel emotions: They could not make decisions.

They could describe what they should be doing in logical terms, yet they found it very difficult to make even simple decisions, such as what to eat. Many decisions have pros and cons on both sides—shall I have the chicken or the turkey? With no rational way to decide, these test subjects were unable to arrive at a decision.

This reinforces the view that we make decisions using emotion but then justify them with facts. This make the use of emotions in funding really important to win the readers support.

 

 

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