Feb 18, 2007-- Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the University of North Carolina, researches something interesting: motivation maintenance. In a recent study, his subjects were a group of paid fund-raisers who solicit money via telephone for a university -- money that supports undergraduate scholarships. A randomly selected subset of the fund-raisers had an opportunity to meet an undergraduate student whose education the donations had funded. That meeting lasted only five minutes, during which time the fund-raiser was free to ask questions to get to know the student. After the student left, the supervisor told the fund-raiser, "Remember this when you’re on the phone. This is someone you’re supporting." Results of this modest intervention were remarkable. One month later, average funds raised by callers who had had an interaction with a scholarship recipient increased almost 300 percent, while control group results remained unchanged. (3213 reads)