Scary Good Storytelling: What Horror Films Teach Fundraisers About Keeping It Fresh

By: Sarah Pita and Mike Esposito, CFRE

Fundraisers can learn a lot from horror movies.

And not just the dread you feel as you wonder if your storytelling will motivate your donors this year.

It can be challenging to come up with a fresh, appealing messaging campaign that will inspire generosity. There are conventions to honor— tell stories of impact, make the donor a part of the story, ask for money, express gratitude. And, as nonprofits, it may be that our mission and impact haven’t changed that much since last year’s appeal. So how do we keep it fresh and compelling?

In this article, just for Halloween, we’ll draw our inspiration from the horror genre. Like a fundraising appeal, a horror story has to hit certain beats—danger, fear, death and destruction, resolution. While fundraising storytelling inspires generosity and connection, horror scares us.

[To be clear, we do not endorse fear-based fundraising messaging—a wealth of research shows that it just doesn’t work very well. Lean into hope, people!]

So how have generations of horror movies innovated to keep it fresh and keep us scared, and what can we learn from them?

PERSPECTIVE SHIFT: This year brought a couple of great examples of how shifts in perspective makes the genre feel fresh, scary, and moving. In Weapons, the story is told from multiple points of view, building suspense while making the audience feel like they’re piecing together the puzzle in real time. And in Good Boy,  the point of view character… is a Retriever named Indy. A dog. In both cases, the unexpected perspective makes the storytelling unexpected and exciting.

In your storytelling, whose point of view have you not considered? How might you tell your story in a fresh way by changing the perspective? Where are your front line field staff— your case workers, your organizers, your biologists—as well as executive leaders in the story? Are there beneficiaries whose voices you haven’t centered previously? How about making the donor the hero, instead of the nonprofit? 

TECHNOLOGY: 1999’s Blair Witch Project took conventional elements in a whole new direction by making the main characters documentary filmmakers. This allowed for an unusual first-person perspective that was famously inexpensive to produce. The “found footage” was marketed as possibly real on the internet. Before the dawn of social media, the fake missing persons reports could not easily be disproven, and generated widespread buzz.

How might you try something innovative (but responsible and ethical) with new technologies and platforms? Send texts or direct messages to donors that prefer these communication channels? How about personalized videos to major donors? 

NOSTALGIA: The blockbuster Netflix series Stranger Things, by contrast, leans into nostalgia, with a lovingly curated 80s aesthetic that heavily references familiar elements from the horror canon in a way that delights viewers. From the music to the hair and the clothes and board games, every detail immerses audiences in a bygone era- one that feels both comforting and eerie, amplifying the show’s supernatural tension through the warmth of collective memory.

How can you harness nostalgia in your storytelling? Are you approaching a milestone anniversary or celebrating a meaningful chapter in your organization’s history? Could you engage program alumni through curated events that feature the movies, music, or games that were popular when they first connected with your mission?

LEAN INTO PLACE: There are many unforgettable places in the horror canon. The Bates Motel. The Overlook Hotel. Camp Crystal Lake. The isolated and eerie mansion of Haunting at Hill House. Season 5 of American Horror Story- Hotel. These locations transcend their settings and practically become characters in their own right- the walls remember, the rooms breathe, and the spaces themselves seem to conspire against those who enter.

Is place a part of your nonprofit’s story? Can you engage your donors’ sense of affinity for that place? If your organization is planning or in the midst of a capital campaign, how can you bring the space to life for donors- helping them see, smell, and feel that new building or protected landscape in a way that inspires them to give?

BREAK THE FOURTH WALL (kind of): Occasionally, an exceptional horror experience reaches out into the real world, becoming (possibly) a part of our own experiences. Think of the panic set off by Orson Welles’ 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, or the way Jaws changed swimming in the ocean (and enabled an environmental catastrophe). The Black Mirror film Bandersnatch takes this a step further- premising audiences not as viewers, but as participants in a gamified, choose-your-own-adventure experience.

How might you invite your donors even closer to your story? Could your next campaign turn giving into a team challenge—encouraging donors to collaborate, compete, and celebrate shared fundraising wins together? Could you create fun challenges for new donors that make it exciting to check off items like following your organization on social media, making their first donation, or tagging a friend in your latest post? What about volunteering opportunities that showcase your work in an unexpected way? 

Ultimately, we are not trying to scare anybody with our fundraising appeals—not even on Halloween. But, it can be genuinely terrifying facing year-end appeals with no idea beyond “let’s just update the numbers and the pictures.” Like the examples we feature here, seek your inspiration beyond the obvious, and look for those winning combinations of familiar elements in new ways.