Giving: is money better than options?

I'd be very surprised were there a one-size-fits-all answer to this. What encourages action for one type of listener will likely discourage it for another. Define your target audience and tailor your message to them.

To be honest, I'm not my advice is going to be more convincing then what you already do. You seem to be doing an excellent job of being humble as opposed to proselytizing at least to me (such as in your caveat above that Julia also deserves credit.)

It is possible (I don't know how likely this is in your case) that attempting to focus too hard on sales techniques can actually backfire if the people who you are attempting to convince are too aware of sales techniques. For instance, after a long spree of consecutive contractor visits, I started to notice certain thematic elements. At one point, I'm pretty sure I had someone leave just because he used a certain sales tactic (I think it was 10% off, but only today!) simply because what might have been convincing under ordinary circumstances seemed like a transparent attempt at manipulation after being exposed to it repeatedly and I didn't even care whether or not his product was worth it.

I would say the only advice I can give you is to not give up. As you mentioned to TheOtherDave, getting an idea of what works is going to require talking to a lot of people. Getting shot down will be discouraging, (In fact, it will probably feel MORE discouraging than you expect, even if you take this into account) but you will want to convince yourself realize that it's better to just move on then spend time moping about it. Also, as someone who has spent time moping, I've found that moping doesn't necessarily feel like moping when you are moping. It would be a good idea to have someone else who could keep an eye on your emotional state during these attempts to note if you seemed to be moping to a more outside perspective.

I think that those pieces of advice (Don't give up, trust in your friends!) Are sort of generic advice that fits a large number of occasions though. Sorry I can't give you more helpful advice, but my record doesn't seem to contain evidence that I am usually that convincing.

First of all, you are correct and I should have reflected that in my post.

Second of all, I suppose I didn't actually find the argument convincing either. If I had, I would have actually donated money to charity in response to being impressed. I CONSIDERED donating money to charity and was very close to doing so, but I decided not to. I doubt I'm explicitly aware of all of the reasons for that decision, but the fact that I recently went below the minimum without fees on my savings account is the first one that came to mind, but I don't know if that's really my true objection.

So including all caveats of which I am currently aware, if someone was in a mental position like mine, and had not recently had any financial trouble, and did not have any other objections, they may have donated.

However, I don't actually like this argument, because it doesn't feel sufficiently inspirational. And while I can think of those caveats NOW, at the time it seemed like I was actually very close to being convinced in a way I don't think that list of that criteria reflects. So I end up liking the connotations of my previous remarks even though the denotations of my current remarks seem more accurate.

Sorry. This is somewhat confusing. I don't really seem to have a good way of discussing ADBOC points even when they are my own points.