Do sad headlines and images make you more likely to support an organization by donating money? Does going negative hurt more than help, and how do we know? If we don't know, maybe just keep things positive. This post is an appeal to take a new approach to appeals that touch on sensitive social justice topics. Things like female genital mutilation and child sex trafficking get people wound up. Focusing on the US, sexual violence, and gun control push peoples' buttons. Fighting climate change is, well, a different case. I point out these obvious facts only to raise a concern about how we use emotion to promote social change. Sometimes activists use emotions effectively. That approach (appeal to emotion) seems common in campaigns dealing with issues in low-income countries (LICs), the places sometimes stilled identified as 'developing' or 'third world'. Issues that deal with vulnerable populations in the United States -children, transgender adults, the homeless ...
A blog devoted to marketing for nonprofits, which also offers some ideas on designing strategies, developing program plans, and similar topics of interest to creating social change.