Communication
As people go about their everyday business, they are exposed to an incoherent mix of informational stimuli. These stimuli are attended to, organized, interpreted and retained i.e. go through the perception process of the people while simultaneously passing through each of their perception filters individually. Thus, the very first step of the fundraising campaign would be to gain the attention of the audience, however due to their attempt of reaching out to the general public through such impersonal mediums as posters, public notices and e-mails, there is a high chance that the campaign will be dismissed from the perception of the audience as a result of ‘Intentional Blindness’. Intentional blindness is the failure to perceive certain objects from one’s environment due to one’s attention being focused somewhere else, it can also occur to an object of interest if one is unaware of it, thus not actively looking for it.
Yet, if somehow the message does reach the audience, even then the subjectivity and variation lent to their perception of it by the filters of personality, psychology and experience based differences, and misinterpretation compounded by the problem of closure, can lead to a wide variety of responses from them to the campaign, including no reaction and/or a paltry donation, neither of which will lead to the goal of the fund-raising. Hence the campaign has to be conducted in manner which not only grabs their attention, but engages them directly while imparting them accurate and intended information about it thus eliminating chances of misinterpretation or misunderstandings resulting from the subjectivities of filtering and closure. The best way to achieve this would be to address small groups of the audience directly, by individual or groups of fund-raisers themselves.
With regards to the first comment - I agree with the writer as it is completely plausible for the intended message of the campaign to get affected and/or distorted by the subjectivity of the volunteers themselves. Thus, before reaching out to the masses it is necessary to ensure that everyone belonging to the campaign is on the same page regarding the issue, process and desired goals of the fundraiser.
Works Cited
Otara, Alfred. "Perception: A Guide for Managers and Leaders." Journal of Management and Strategy Vol. 2, No. 3 (2011): 21-24.
Williams, Chuck. MGMT: Principles of Management. Mason,OH :Cengage Learning 7th ed, 2013.
