Most fundraisers have heard some version of this advice a hundred times: Be concrete, specific, make it tangible, show one child.   Speaking of children, I find it useful to act like one (insert joke here)  by asking, but why?

Why does being concrete sometimes work so well and sometimes fall flat?  Here’s what we know.

When an appeal is concrete, it zooms in on vivid, emotionally resonant details—like a story about one child who needs breakfast tomorrow morning. This kind of message feels personal and immediate. It taps into our sense of loyalty and duty to help those who feel close to us, even if we’ve never met them.

When an appeal is abstract, it zooms out. It highlights the broader cause, ending hunger for all children, not just one. Abstraction reduces focus on any single case and promotes a more universal, impartial concern. It encourages donors to see all people as equally deserving of help.

That last distinction matters, because donors differ in how they see right and wrong.

• Some donors are loyalty-focused. They feel a moral obligation to take care of “their own”—family, community, country. You can often spot them through personality: people higher in conscientiousness tend to hold this loyalty-driven worldview.  A concrete story about one child will inspire loyalty-focused donors. The specificity feels real and trustworthy.

• Other donors are impartiality-focused. They’re motivated by fairness and universal care—helping anyone in need, no matter who they are. Higher openness to experience often signals this mindset and big-picture thinking.  An abstract vision, ending child hunger everywhere, resonates with impartiality-focused donors who care about the broader cause more than any single example.

If you get this match right, giving goes up. Get it wrong, and your carefully crafted story can fall flat.

Across studies, the pattern is clear:

Why This Matters to You

Most fundraising programs still default to “best practices” like: “Always use a vivid, concrete story.”

The problem is best practice assumes everyone’s wired the same way but your donors aren’t interchangeable.  The same concrete story to everyone guarantees some people feel inspired and others feel disconnected.

How to Get It Right

DonorVoice helps you tag your donors by Big Five traits so you can confidently segment messaging:

• Abstract, big-picture appeals for high-openness donors who want to help humanity.

• Concrete, specific stories for high-conscientiousness donors who feel responsible for their own community.

This is your path to treating donors like individuals instead of generic “best practice” targets.

Kevin