Studies on the psychology of charitable giving demonstrate that organizations trying to spread awareness about an issue must go beyond telling potential donors about it. These findings are based on a suggestion that donations are influenced by the way people interpret how much they know about the charity seeking their support.
Having felt overwhelmed with how to best present life-saving information and skills that are packed into the latest draft of a script for a television show I’m producing, this study on charity comes in handy. It’s considerably applicable to some approaches that I want to utilize to make the episodes more appealing to viewers because -- let’s be real here – topics such as disasters and emergency preparedness are not sexy. Neither is public television or educational programming. Still, I would like to create content that matters while also not wasting my time; especially given television’s decline in popularity, save for shows like Game of Thrones.
In “Knowing More About a Charity is Not Always Better” published by Psychology Today, Art Markman Ph.D. says there are two ways that charities with the goal of raising awareness can make their message more effective. It’s nice to know that the methods he describes are not far off from how I plan to make my television show work, in a world where it seems like more people get their entertainment from tablets and smartphones than anything else:
1. Get people to think about how little they know about a particular issue before hearing your message.
When we start filming the TV program, I aim to include interviews with randomly selected individuals who answer questions on various subjects involving disasters. Think of it as something along the lines of those old “Jaywalking” segments on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, sans the humor. Asking people about important topics that can affect them, whether either directly or indirectly, will allow them to test their knowledge on the spot while also providing a lead-in for the informational/instructional segments in each episode.
2. Remind them how little most people know about this issue, which is why it is crucial to raise awareness.
N is for NotesUpon hiring a TV show host (which, of course, probably won't be any of the men or women who sent me selfies to get an audition and screen test), his or her segments are expected to feature the correct answers to questions asked of those random individuals on the street, supplemented with information about how many people were already affected by a particular disaster or emergency in recent months. Did YOU know there were 894 home fire deaths reported by the media in 2015?
Did you also know Ohio and New York lead the nation in reported fatalities from these disasters? Spring isn’t even in full swing yet and there have already been nearly one thousand fatalities this year, according to FEMA – and that’s not even counting the firefighters who died while on-duty!
When the show is broadcast, viewers are also able to get an idea of how much they didn’t know about dealing with emergencies, by seeing people who look, think and behave just like them, and share their interests, yet might also be lacking in knowledge on important subjects. This will hopefully peak their interest in learning more about safety measures that can help them better cope with various balls in the air, during emergency situations.
What subjects have YOU taken notes on recently?
How many freak accidents have YOU heard about on the news or through the grapevine?
What is the biggest thing that's next on YOUR to-do list this month?