I’m reading a fab book at the mo – Joe Trippi’s ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’, from 2004. Among other things, he writes passionately about how the American people became disillusioned with their political system, and it strikes me there’s a clear parallel with our industry.

In the US, party or presidential candidates became overly reliant on sabotaging their opponents through negative TV advertising – even if the advert had little basis in truth, the shocking images stuck and invariably the most vitriolic campaigns won out on polling day. This lead to an escalating ‘arms race’ of negative followed by negative with the cumulative effect that many voters eventually had to turn away, as evidenced by falling voting numbers. Less engagement in politics led to the ads having to work harder and harder, be even more negative and manipulative to have an impact, and so this spiral continued. In Trippi’s words -

‘Its like shining a bright light in someone’s eye – the pupil closes the brighter the light gets, letting in less light, so you shine the light brighter to get more light in and the pupil shuts out more light, until pretty soon, the person just has to look away.’

We’re no strangers to this in the UK. I can still remember the Labour campaign that ran the words ‘Get out and vote. Or they get in’ under an image of William Hague with Margaret Thatcher’s hair-do. Both frightening and effective! And we’re suffering from serious political disengagement here too.

Perhaps there’s a danger of something similar happening in fundraising too. It’s a fact that it’s often the hardest hitting, the most urgent communications that deliver the greatest response. And as new supporter recruitment gets harder the temptation is for us to get harder, to turn the dial up on the need, the urgency and the guilt. But there’s a very real danger that this negative cycle will only drive away our audiences even further, that the short-term gains will damage our long-term future.

When we break this cycle, treat our audience with respect and give them an inspirational way to connect with the cause, we can achieve great results. So as well as maintaining the sense of urgency that’s so important to response, we can also connect with people beyond the transaction, cultivating a more engaged, more inspired donor and a longer supporter relationship as a result. If we don’t there’s a possibility that consumers will treat us the same as more and more of us are treating politics. They’ll turn away, disengage, close their eyes.

Trippi proved that it is possible to break this negative cycle, and that when you do the results can be extraordinary. Inspirational. Click below if you want to read more.

The Revolution will Not be Televised, Joe Trippi

Mark Cook