Charitable Fundraising Letter Photos: Should They Be Sad or Happy?
The TL;DR
I found and reviewed over 40 academic studies on whether sad or happy photos raise more money in charitable appeals. The research is contradictory — because “sad or happy?” is the wrong question. What actually drives donations is the match between the photo and the message. A positive photo paired with opportunity-focused copy is the most effective combination. A negative photo paired with threat-focused copy is second best. Mismatches reduce giving. For most annual fund appeal letters — which use opportunity framing and go to donors you already know — a happy, impact photo is the safer default. But it’s not the only option, and there are situations where a need photo is the right choice. The details, and the research, is below.
Here’s a debate I sometimes hear.
An executive director looks at the appeal letter proof and says, “That photo is too sad. It feels manipulative.” Meanwhile, the development director worries that the smiling-kid photo “won’t motivate anyone to give.”
The conventional wisdom in fundraising — endorsed by some of the best minds in donor communications — is that sad photos raise more money. That advice is rooted in real research, and the people who give it have decades of experience behind them.
But the research landscape has expanded considerably since the foundational study was published in 2009. I found and reviewed over 40 studies on this question. The findings are contradictory, complex, and more useful than a simple rule. And when you look at them through the lens of direct mail specifically — which is what we are here to discuss — the picture looks different than you might expect.
In fact, “should the photo be sad or happy?” turns out to be the wrong question.
Where the “Sad Photos Work Better” Rule Comes From
The widely cited source is a 2009 study by Small and Verrochi, published in the Journal of Marketing Research. They found that photos showing sad facial expressions generated more sympathy and more donation intent than happy or neutral ones. The mechanism is “emotional contagion” — viewers unconsciously “catch” the sadness from the face, which triggers sympathy and motivates giving. But the authors also found “there is no main effect of expression on donation amount."
That finding entered the fundraising mainstream, mainly through press releases based on the paper’s abstract. Tom Ahern, one of the most respected authorities on donor communications, has mentioned it. Jeff Brooks, another veteran with 35+ years in direct response fundraising, wrote about it as confirmation of “what every experienced fundraiser already knows.” These are people whose work I respect, and whose advice has helped thousands of nonprofits raise more money.
But Brooks himself added an important caveat in that same post: the study tested artificial situations with college students sitting at a computer, not direct mail fundraising with real donors. And Small and Verrochi themselves found something that gets much less attention: when participants read more information alongside the photo — when they engaged in what psychologists call “deliberative processing” — the facial expression effect diminished.
That’s a critical finding for anyone writing fundraising letters. A good appeal letter is designed to be read. It has a story, details, testimonials, an ask. It’s exactly the kind of rich, deliberative context where the sad-face effect fades.
The Most Important Finding:
It’s the Match, Not the Photo
If the research doesn’t support a simple “sad wins” rule, what does it support?
The answer comes from a rigorous six-study paper with a meta-analysis by Genevsky, Knutson, and Yoon (Erasmus University, Stanford University, and University of Michigan) that directly addressed why the prior research appeared contradictory. Their meta-analysis found that neither image valence (sad vs. happy) nor message framing (opportunity vs. threat) alone had a significant effect on donations. Only the interaction between them mattered.
What drove donations was affective match — whether the emotional tone of the photo matched the overall emotional tone of the surrounding message. Not just the ask sentence, but the story, the problem description, the framing of the solution — the entire emotional direction of the copy:
Positive photo + opportunity-focused message = most effective. When the overall message framed the situation as a chance to help — stories of progress, solutions in action, the donor’s role in making good things happen — a happy/positive photo generated the highest donations.
Negative photo + threat-focused message = second most effective. When the overall message framed the situation as a danger to be averted — stories of urgent need, problems worsening, consequences of inaction — a sad/need photo generated higher donations.
Mismatches reduced giving. A happy photo sitting next to copy about urgent need, or a distressing photo alongside copy about progress and hope, produced lower donations than either matched combination.
The mechanism was surprising: both matched combinations — even the negative-negative match — generated positive arousal in donors. The match itself felt right, which created approach motivation. The mismatch felt wrong, which dampened it.
This finding is confirmed by Chang and Lee (2009), who found that image–message congruence enhanced donation advertising effectiveness, especially when both were negative. They added a useful temporal dimension: short-term framing (“1,250 children die every hour”) facilitated the effect of a negative message with a negative photo by making risks more proximate and concrete, while a long-term frame (“11 million children die each year”) increased the effect of a positive message with a positive photo.
An important clarification about what “match” means in practice. In a real fundraising letter, the photo rarely sits next to the ask sentence. It sits within the story — next to the problem description, or the description of the solution, or the testimonial. “Match” means the emotional tone of the copy surrounding the photo, not just the wording of the ask. A letter that tells a story of hope and recovery, with a smiling photo of the person helped, is a positive-positive match throughout — even if the ask sentence at the end says “Please give.” A letter that opens with urgent need and pairs that urgency with a photo showing the problem is a negative-negative match — even if the closing pivots to hope.
To see what congruence looks like in practice, here are examples from our work:
Positive story + positive photo: These examples from our design gallery, the ACE appeal letter, the Hope, Inc. letter, the Handel & Haydn Society letter, and the Keene State College letter, all demonstrate this: hopeful stories paired with photos of people thriving, engaged, or grateful. Also see five different positive ways of asking, all congruent with a positive photo.
Need-focused story + need photo: This Upper Valley Haven letter shows a different kind of congruence — the photo matches the urgency of the copy.
More examples of both approaches are in our Knowledge Center and at Graphic Design for Nonprofits.
Why this matters for your appeal letter: Think about how most fundraising appeal letters are written. The story is one of hope and possibility: “Your gift of $50 can provide…” “With your support, we can…” “Because of donors like you…” That’s positive, opportunity-focused framing. According to the match research, framing pairs best with a positive, hopeful photo.
If your letter frames the situation primarily as a threat — “Without your help, families will go hungry this winter” — then a need photo showing the urgency of the problem is the congruent choice. Emergency appeals and crisis campaigns often use this framing naturally.
The question isn’t “sad or happy?” It’s “does the photo match the emotional tone of my letter?”
Why a Powerful Photo Can Still Produce Poor Results
One reason the “sad photos work” intuition persists is that distressing images do attract more visual attention. Eye-tracking and EEG research confirms that negative images get significantly more fixations and higher attention scores than positive ones. When a fundraiser sees donors react to a dramatic photo — they gasp, they comment, they share it — it’s natural to assume it will also generate more giving.
But the same research found no connection between attention level and intention to donate. A photo that makes you look doesn’t necessarily make you give. What makes you give is the match between what you see and what you read — and the feeling that your donation will make a difference.
This also helps explain why a letter with a riveting, dramatic photo can underperform one with a quieter, more hopeful image. The dramatic photo wins the attention contest but loses the framing match. Without congruent copy — without the words that channel the emotion toward action — the photo alone isn’t enough.
Five More Findings That Matter for Direct Mail
1. Sad photos trigger suspicion of manipulation
A large study by Kang, Leliveld, and Ferraro (2022), with 2,141 participants across five experiments, found that sad-faced images evoke not only sympathy but also “inferences of manipulative intent”. These two effects work in opposite directions and can cancel each other out, and according to their tests, produce a null net effect on donation.
This is the risk your executive director is sensing when she says the photo “feels manipulative.” The research says she’s not wrong. Some donors will have that reaction.
2. Happy photos work better in ongoing relationships
Jang (2019) found that sad faces drove more one-time donations, but in ongoing relationships the preference for sad-faced children disappeared entirely. Donors avoided the prospect of repeated exposure to distressing images. Your annual fund donors are in an ongoing relationship with you. That ongoing context favors photos they want to keep seeing.
3. When the person looks directly at the donor, happy outperforms
Tong et al. (2021) found that when there is direct eye contact between the person in the photo and the viewer — which is what most appeal letter photos feature — happy expressions generated stronger emotional intensity and higher donation intent.
4. Photos showing the person actively helping themselves increase donations
Perez, Munichor, and Buskila (2023) found that photos showing recipients engaged in physical self-help — actively doing something to improve their situation — increased donations through a sense of inspiration. This connects to a principle I use in writing appeal letters: the story arc.
In a good fundraising story, the person helped is the hero. They face a problem, they find resources the donor provided through your organization, and they solve the problem. If you can show the person doing something — working, learning, building, recovering — rather than just suffering, you engage the donor’s sense of possibility. The research confirms this: agency inspires giving.
5. A sad-to-happy sequence is powerful
Bae (2021) used eye-tracking to show that a negative-to-positive photo sequence increased cognitive elaboration, empathy, and donation intent. Wang, Guo, and Wu (2025) found that showing both need and impact photos was more effective than the need photo alone, especially when need came first. This directly supports the story arc: if you use two photos, show the need first and the impact second.
Why Most of the Research Doesn’t Directly Apply to Your Appeal Letter
Only one of these studies tested direct mail.
Of the 40+ studies I reviewed, only one tested direct mail. Most of the rest tested simple online advertisements — a photo plus a tagline, or a photo plus a short message — shown to convenience samples of college students or paid online recruits. These participants had no prior relationship with the organization, no story to read, no ask strings, no reply card, no letter to turn over.
A two-page fundraising letter going to someone who gave your organization $100 last year is a fundamentally different communication. The photo is one element embedded in a rich context of story, data, emotion, and a specific ask. The donor knows you. She’s going to read, not glance.
Almost none of the studies report the actual message framing text they used. Genevsky’s framing manipulations were brief scenario descriptions — far simpler than a multi-page letter. We don’t know how these findings translate when the “message” is 500 words of story-driven copy rather than a headline.
Why are there so few direct mail tests of this question? Because direct mail A/B testing can require tens of thousands of mail pieces per treatment to detect a meaningful difference — if one exists. Unlike online experiments where researchers can test hundreds of people cheaply, a rigorous direct mail photo test would cost tens of thousands of dollars. That’s why almost all the research uses online ads with small panels. (For more on why lab studies and direct mail tests require such different sample sizes, see [Why A/B Testing In Direct Mail Charitable Fundraising Is Often Difficult to Do].)
The one academic study I found that tested actual direct mail is Dyck and Coldevin (1992), who sent appeal letters with either a positive photo, a negative photo, or no photo to more than 45,000 donors on World Vision Canada’s list. The positive photo yielded a modestly higher average contribution ($48.55 vs. $45.90 for the negative photo). Response rates were essentially identical across all three conditions (7.1–7.3%).
But this study deserves a closer look before we draw conclusions from it. The negative photo was of a visibly malnourished child — what the authors themselves describe as the “starving baby appeal” tradition. That’s far more extreme than anything most nonprofits would use or even have.
If your organization works in education, healthcare, conservation, the arts, food insecurity, or homelessness, the “negative” photos available to you are of someone looking discouraged, a family in a difficult setting, or perhaps a scruffy animal at a shelter. None of these carry the visceral shock of a starving child. The study tells us something about extreme distress photos with a donor base already fatigued by such imagery. Whether it tells us anything about a photo of a discouraged student or a mother visiting a food bank is less clear.
Additionally, while the authors treated their 45,000 donors as a complete population (making all differences technically “significant”), if we view their donors as a sample of all charitable direct mail recipients — which is what matters if you’re generalizing to your own appeals — the response rate differences are not statistically significant, and the average gift difference is modest enough that it likely isn’t either.
On the practitioner side, it is difficult to find any advice based on testing. But TrueSense Marketing, a major direct mail fundraising agency (where Jeff Brooks was Creative Director for 8 years), reported that in head-to-head tests for food bank clients, happy photos produced flat or winning results compared to sad photos. Like my research findings, their creative director emphasizes matching the emotional valence of the photo to that of the story being told.
A Practical Reality: Most of Your Photos Are Already Positive
Most US nonprofits don’t have a real choice between “sad” and “happy” photos. The photos available to you — the ones your program staff take, the ones clients consent to share, the ones in your files — are overwhelmingly neutral to positive. In healthcare, the photos are of patients who’ve recovered, celebrating milestones, or smiling with staff. In education, they’re students engaged in learning. In the arts and conservation, they’re people enjoying the mission.
Even organizations that could access more difficult images often choose not to. Healthcare organizations resist showing suffering; their brand is hope and healing. Schools won’t photograph struggling students. Conservation groups have photos of people in beautiful landscapes or of thriving wildlife.
The exception is animal rescue, where before-and-after photos of injured or neglected animals are sometimes available — and where the story arc (suffering animal → rescue → recovery) maps naturally to the sad-to-happy sequence that research supports. But even there, not all animals have a visible affect (think sea turtles).
So, the good news from the research is: the photos you already have are the ones that work best for most appeal letters. If your copy uses opportunity framing — and most appeal letters do — then a positive, hopeful photo is the congruent match. You’re not settling for what’s available. You’re using what the evidence supports.
How Much Difference Does the Photo Actually Make?
A fair question. In the lab studies that tested photo-message match, the matched combination increased donations by roughly 7–13% compared to the mismatched combination. But those studies tested simple ads where the photo was the dominant element. In a multi-page letter with a strong story, personalized ask strings, and a well-designed reply card, the photo is one element among many.
It’s unlikely to be the difference between a 5% and a 10% response rate. Think of it as one of a dozen decisions — the copy, the ask strings, the segmentation, the timing, the envelope, the reply card, the photo — that each contribute incrementally. Get them all right and the cumulative effect is substantial. The photo is worth getting right, but it’s not worth agonizing over at the expense of the copy, the ask, or the segmentation.
Match the Photo to the Story Arc
If the research teaches us one thing, it’s that the photo doesn’t work in isolation. It works in concert with the message. So, the starting point isn’t choosing between sad and happy — it’s understanding the story you’re telling.
If your fundraising letter tells a story, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A person faces a problem. The donor provides resources through your organization. The problem gets solved. The photo can illustrate any part of that story.
A beginning photo shows someone facing a problem — struggling, in need, waiting for help. It engages empathy. It works best when the person has agency — they’re the hero who hasn’t yet found the resources they need. When the story is framed as “With your help, she was able to…” a sad photo at the beginning isn’t victimizing. It’s introducing the hero before the turning point.
A middle photo shows someone actively working to improve their situation — with the donor’s support. A student in a classroom. A local farmer harvesting crops. A patient in rehabilitation. As we said realirer in this article, research confirms that showing the person doing something inspires giving more than showing them passively suffering.
An end photo shows the problem solved. Someone thriving, smiling, looking into the camera with gratitude or pride. It shows the donor what their gift made possible.
If your communication is a stewardship piece, newsletter, or impact report — which is fundamentally a thank-you — a happy, impact photo paired with recognition messaging is the strongest combination. Pham and Septianto (2020) found that a happy child paired with a recognition message (“thank you”) was as effective as a sad child paired with a request message (“please donate”).
If you use two photos in a letter, put the need photo first and the impact photo second — the story arc sequence that eye-tracking research shows increases engagement.
This Applies to Email and Social Media Too
Almost all the research reviewed in this article was conducted online — using digital ads, social media–style images, and screen-based experiments. That means the match principle applies also to your email fundraising, social media advertising, and social media posts. If you’re choosing a photo for a fundraising email, a Facebook ad, or an Instagram post, the same guidance holds: match the emotional tone of the image to the emotional tone of the copy. The medium changes; the psychology doesn’t.
Practical Guidelines for Choosing the Photo
One or two people looking directly into the camera. Multiple studies confirm the “identifiable victim effect.” Li and Yin (2022) found that for sad photos, a single person works best; for happy photos, a small group can also work well.
Show the environment. Caserotti et al. (2022) found that background detail — a clinic, a classroom, a shelter — increases perceived tangibility and donation. Don’t crop out informative context if there is room to include it.
Show agency when you can. A photo of someone actively working to improve their life inspires giving through a different pathway than sympathy. It engages the donor’s sense of possibility.
Authenticity matters more than production quality. The photo should feel right for the story. Carvalho, Hildebrand, and Sen (2019) found that well-dressed, well-groomed victims were perceived as less needy, reducing help. But victimization should be seldom be chosen as a look. In the work I do with my local homeless shelter, in photos we never take away the dignity of our story heros.
Stock photos are fine when needed. If you don’t have access to a photo of the actual person, a well-chosen stock photo works. Don’t claim it’s the real person. Think of it as an illustration.
Write a strong caption. Eye-tracking research shows photos with captions are among the first things readers look at. Put the case for giving in the caption. A weak caption: “Volunteers at the food pantry.” A strong caption: “Because of donors like you, 200 families didn’t go hungry last month.”
Always include a headshot of the letter signer. Next to the signature, a photo of the person writing the letter makes the communication more real and personal.
For examples of how photos and text work together in real appeals, see our post on How to Design and Write a Donor-centric Fundraising Letter.
Key Research at a Glance
The table below summarizes the studies most relevant to photos in direct mail fundraising. For the complete review of all 40+ studies, including key findings, applicability ratings, and links to full abstracts, see the Sad vs. Happy Photos in Fundraising: Research Summary Table.
| Study | Key Finding | DM Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| Dyck & Coldevin, 1992 Journalism Quarterly | Real direct mail to 45,000+ World Vision Canada donors. No significant difference in response rates. Positive photo yielded modestly higher average gift ($48.55 vs $45.90). Negative photo was extreme (malnourished child). | HIGH (with caveats). Only academic DM study. Extreme negative photo and non-significant results limit generalizability. |
| Chang & Lee, 2009 J of Applied Social Psychology | Image–message congruence enhances effectiveness. Short-term frame + negative message + negative image works; long-term frame + positive message + positive image works. | MODERATE. Maps to: urgent appeals pair with need photos; stewardship pairs with impact photos. |
| Small & Verrochi, 2009 J of Marketing Research | Sad faces increased sympathy and donations via emotional contagion. But effect diminished with deliberative processing (reading more information). | LOW–MOD. Simple ads, not letters. Deliberation finding argues against sad photos in text-rich direct mail. |
| Genevsky et al., 2018 6 studies + meta-analysis | Meta-analysis: neither image valence nor message framing alone had a significant main effect. Only the match mattered. Positive image + opportunity framing = most effective. Negative image + threat framing = second best. | HIGH. Explains why prior studies conflict. Most appeal letters use opportunity framing, which pairs best with positive photos. |
| Jang, 2019 Advances in Consumer Research | Sad faces drove one-time donations. In ongoing relationships, sad-face preference disappeared — donors avoided future distress. | HIGH. Annual fund donors are in ongoing relationships. Supports happy photos for renewals. |
| Pham & Septianto, 2020 European J of Marketing | Sad child + request message increased donations. Happy child + recognition message increased donations. Match matters. | HIGH. Appeals (request + need photo) vs. stewardship (recognition + impact photo). |
| Bae, 2021 J of Promotion Management | Sad-then-happy sequence increased elaboration (eye-tracking), positive emotions, empathy, and donation intent. | HIGH. Supports the story arc: show problem first, then solution. |
| Tong et al., 2021 Frontiers in Psychology | With direct eye contact: happy faces generated stronger emotional intensity and higher donation intent. | HIGH. DM photos typically feature direct eye contact. Supports happy photos. |
| Kang et al., 2022 J of Behavioral Decision Making | Sad faces evoked sympathy AND manipulation inferences. Cancelled out: null net effect. N=2,141. | HIGH. Manipulation risk is real for frequently-solicited donors. |
| Caserotti et al., 2022 Frontiers in Psychology | Background detail in photos increased perceived tangibility and donation amount. | HIGH. Don’t crop out the environment. |
| Perez et al., 2023 J of Business Research | Photos showing physical self-help (person actively doing something) increased donations via inspiration. | HIGH. Supports showing agency — the person working to improve their situation. |
| TrueSense, 2024 Practitioner report | Head-to-head DM tests: happy photos produced flat or winning results vs. sad. Match photo’s emotional valence to the story. | HIGH. Practitioner A/B testing in actual direct mail. |
*Study titles link to the published source.
The Bottom Line
The sad-or-happy debate has been going on for years. The research hasn’t settled it — because it’s the wrong question.
What over 40 studies tell us is that the effect of a photo depends on the message it’s paired with, the audience it’s shown to, and the context it appears in. Neither sad nor happy has a reliable main effect on its own. What works is the match between the photo and the story.
For printed direct mail appeal letters going to your own donors and prospects — which most of us are doing —several findings make happy, impact photos the safer default. But “safer default” doesn’t mean “always.” A need photo that shows the beginning of the story, that gives agency to the person helped, that is congruent with threat-framed or urgency-driven copy — that can be powerful. Especially in acquisition mailings, emergency appeals, or crisis campaigns.
Match the photo to the message. Show the person’s agency. Write a caption that makes the case. Tell the story. And if you’re unsure, ask yourself the question: does this photo pull the donor into the story? Do that, and the photo will work — whether it’s sad or happy.
Need help with your next appeal? Contact Gary Henricksen, Direct Response Fundraising Coach, at 603-717-2361 or ghenricksen@creative-ig.com for a quick tour of best practices that will help you raise more money.
