Campaigns are an important way for charities to gain donations. The question is whether campaigns should focus on the positive: “With your donation, X’s future will be brighter”, or on the negative: “Without your help, X will not have a bright future”.
Framing is the way in which information is presented. The framing of your campaign affects the likelihood of donation.
The use of positive or negative framing can serve two different goals:
- Activation. Use positive framing when you want people to do something about the problem, such as donating or volunteering their time.
- Awareness. Use negative framing to bring attention and awareness to the problem.
Therefore, the goal of your campaign determines whether positive or negative framing should be used. Note that if people are already aware of the problem, an awareness campaign (using negative framing) will often not work to increase donations. A better alternative is to make it clear how people can help and what their help can achieve.
Make sure the text and image are concordant with each other
Another important aspect of framing is the consistency between text and image. Research by Chang & Lee showed that the use of an image and text should be concordant. So, it should be a positive visual with a positive text but not a positive visual with a negative text. As long as the text and image are consistent, the message can be processed unconsciously, but if the text and image are not concordant, the conscious part of our brain needs to be used. To process this inconsistent message requires effort and this can lead to reduced effectiveness. Our brain prefers to exert the least amount of effort possible (see Learning 3).
Use statistics the right way
The same research showed that quoting bigger statistical figures is more effective when using negative framing because this emphasizes the urgency of the problem. Statistics with smaller figures work better when using positive framing because this makes the end-goal seem attainable. Figures that are too high can make the end-goal seem impossible to reach.
Note: using figures doesn’t always work well if you want people to act on the problem. In this case, it would be better to say that “Person X doesn’t have enough food” instead of saying “Millions of people don’t have enough food”. Read more about this in Learning 1.
