Charitable giving feels so good it should be illegal

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26 July 2011

Charitable giving feels so good it should be illegal

Giving feels good. Consider this, from Katya's Nonprofit Marketing Blog: Dopamine and donating: A biology lesson. Donating is in a small category of activities that we like a lot:

Certain activities trigger dopamine, making us feel good. We feel pleasure when we eat, drink and reproduce. Also when we do drugs, gamble, learn, exercise and ... yes, give to charity.

If you're afraid your work is taking something away from donors, think again. You're providing a guilt-free pleasure. Dopamine plus change the world!

We get complaints all the time from people who don't like something or other about our fundraising. Sometimes we forget all the good stuff that's quietly happening in donors' lives.

Posted by Jeff Brooks on 26 July 2011 at 07:28 | Permalink

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The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It's not about any technology, medium, or technique. It's about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It's already here. More.

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Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 30 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you'll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com. More.

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