Fundraising and the Backward Brain

The final mistaken direction for the creation of Project X was this: "Our case for giving will 
be our great success in the 
past, not the depth of our need now."

This is a full-on, all-the-way, double hemispheric flip. The first flip was left to right: People inside nonprofits are motivated by successful outcomes. Understanding and repeating success is how you build effective programs. This left-hemisphere thinking should not be applied to fundraising messages: Experience shows us that donors are much more likely to give to fill needs than to continue successes.