I see it as this: I wouldn't have donated to me if I were on screen in a staged environment trying to pitch for dollars. We did record a sit down, it was boring and annoying. Just doesn't suit my presentation. I've seen sit downs that do well on Kickstarter so I dunno where to begin classifying the details of what made it work and what made it fail.
Big lesson learned for me, video can actually hurt more than help so changing it was mandatory.
It's a case-by-case basis. Again, the only true constant is that you need to have a group of people ready to support you from day one. The second being "a reason to care", social topics etc are easy pitches for niches and demographics.
