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The holidays bring out generosity, and for fundraisers, that’s an opportunity. But the right message can mean the difference between an appeal that goes unnoticed and one that inspires people to give. New research shows that the key to success lies in storytelling—specifically, the emotional journey of the story.

“People are often convinced by the heart, not just the brain,” said��Liu Liu, assistant professor of marketing at the Leeds School of Business and co-author of the working paper, “.” “Emotional storytelling reaches where reason sometimes can’t, so building empathy and a sense of connection is what turns a story into action.”

Liu Liu

The researchers, who included Leeds marketing professor��Laura Kornish��and Samsun Knight, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Toronto, analyzed more than 14,000 medical fundraising pitches on GoFundMe. They measured emotions across stories using an AI tool that detects emotion in text. They focused on three key emotional categories that are important to online fundraising: sadness, fear and caring. A fourth category–neutrality–was included to capture overall emotionality.

The findings were clear: Stories that start with sadness and end with caring are the most likely to reach their fundraising goals.��For example, a fundraiser might begin by describing a patient’s sadness upon receiving a difficult diagnosis, then shift to expressions of caring and gratitude as friends and family rally around them, highlighting the support that a broader community, including donors, can provide.

Other story arcs, such as those that stay caring throughout or shift from sadness to a neutral tone, also tended to appear in higher-earning campaigns, according to the study.��But the researchers caution that these trends are based on observational GoFundMe posts rather than controlled experiments, meaning they should be interpreted as correlations, not proof that these emotions cause donors to give more.

It’s not just which emotions a story evokes, Liu said; it’s the way those emotions unfold throughout the narrative.

“The order matters. A sad beginning captures attention and builds empathy. Ending with caring fosters identification with the person asking for help, which motivates donations,” she said.

Testing emotional storytelling

Measuring the emotional impact of stories is not easy. “Stories are complex and subjective. We wanted to capture narrative and language patterns in a scalable, accurate way,” Liu said.

To make sure the study’s results weren’t influenced by other factors that could affect emotional perception and fundraising success, the researchers developed a testing method involving crowd-sourced, large-language-model (LLM) assisted rewrites that include humans. LLMs generated rewritten fundraising narratives at scale, while humans ensured factual accuracy and natural-sounding emotional progression, Liu said.��

The team first selected real fundraising pitches on GoFundMe and identified their baseline emotional arcs, then used the LLM to create rewrites targeting specific emotional sequences, such as sadness to caring. Human reviewers corrected any inaccuracies the LLM introduced and refined the text, then both the original and rewritten pitches were evaluated for persuasiveness and emotional impact.��

Why the sadness-to-caring arc resonates

The researchers also explored why stories that move from sadness to caring seem to resonate with donors. “Sadness may signal the problem, while caring may highlight the humanity and gratitude of the person asking. That combination makes donors feel close to the protagonist, and that identification increases donations,” Liu said.��

In other words, people are more likely to give when they can see themselves in the story and connect with the person or cause.

Even short-form stories like social media posts or email appeals can benefit from this approach, Liu said. And although the study centered on medical fundraising, the findings can be used as a blueprint that other types of nonprofits can adapt to craft more compelling calls for donations.

“Our work identifies one powerful sequence for medical fundraising, but the method can be applied more broadly: Nonprofits can find the sequence that resonates most with their audience,” Liu said.