Spend time on Facebook each day?  Want to help your favorite charity?  You can now do both – simultaneously.  GamesThatGive (now owned by Facebook software company Vitrue), allows gamers the opportunity to support their favorite charities simply by playing online games.  The longer you play, the more money is donated by GamesThatGive.

For those who may not be aware of the specifics, here is how it works.  You play a GamesThatGive branded online game and GamesThatGive gives away 70% of the proceeds earned from ad revenue.  The amount you help raise for approved charities is determined by the amount of time you are on the site.  Needless to say, non-profits gladly steer donors to the gaming sites.  The ease of use and the quick return to non-profits make this gaming tactic very attractive.

But all that glitters isn’t necessarily gaming gold – or at least not the gold you really want.  While I understand the appeal of approaches like GamesThatGive, the concerns are significant.  Let me suggest two reasons why the gamification of giving may not be good for philanthropy and your institution.

1. Gamification Doesn’t Educate Donors – Effective development professionals understand that our real work with donors is about educating more than it is asking.  Before we ever ask, we help donors better understand and appreciate the plight of those we serve and how, with their giving, we can serve better.  In addition, we work to educate our donors on the joys of giving!  Giving is good for people and part of our work is to encourage donors to be their best through the act of being generous.  The gamification of giving doesn’t give us much of a chance to do this educational work.
2. Gamification Doesn’t Engage the Whole Donor – Of course, some might say the following:  ’Well, maybe we don’t educate the donors with gaming, but it is free and easy gift income, so that’s not all bad.’  Perhaps. . . but it ain’t very good, either!  Is money all you really want from your donors?  Really?  The vast majority of institutions that engage our firm want far more from their donors.  And I bet you do, too.  Whether it’s to call prospective students and encourage their enrollment.  Or, participating in  a donor thank-a-thon.  Or serving on a committee.  Or helping with an event.  Or a host of other volunteer activities.  Effective development leaders recognize the need to engage much more of the whole person than simply the pocketbook.  Gaming doesn’t focus your donors on how they can enhance their engagement with your institution.  Gaming focuses your donors on gaming.

Every day new technologies and social media apps create fresh opportunities for philanthropy.  I am very supportive of thinking through new ways to engage donors.  But as we digest all of these new opportunities we should regularly reflect on the real purpose of our work.  If it were all about fundraising, then gaming might make more sense.  But there is a reason we refer to our work as “development.”

Advancement work regularly requires our best creativity.  Whether we are devising cultivation strategies for key major donor prospects, writing direct response solicitations, or designing case statements and campaign videos, each of us has to engage the most creative elements of ourselves consistently.

The problem, though, is that we tend to think of creativity incorrectly.  We believe creativity is something that strikes unexpectedly (like lightning).  Or we believe creativity is an in-born characteristic – something that one either has or doesn’t have.  Or, we view creativity as the process of putting forth something completely new.  But all of these beliefs are inaccurate.

The first two views encourage us to believe that there really isn’t much we can do to enhance our own creativity – we either have it (or get it) or we don’t.  The third idea – that being creativity means putting forth something completely new – discourages us because it makes the creative process seem so capacious.  How in the world can I make something truly new?  That job is just too big.  So, I don’t even try.

The reality, though, is that creativity can be nurtured and cultivated.  And here are three simple ways for you to enhance your creativity:

1. Read Something That Stretches You – I’m not talking a magazine or a newspaper or a book of fiction.  I’m talking about a book of interesting ideas, a biography of an important historical figure, or an academic book in which you learn something new.   The truly creative person doesn’t create “new” ideas or things, they are inspired by what they learn, see, and experience and put together old ideas or techniques in fresh ways.  When we expose ourselves to new perspectives and experiences – and good books make this easy to do – we give our creative minds the fuel to operate.
2. Go Green – Do you have live plants in your office or cubicle?  Can you see trees out your window?  Research has repeatedly shown that having a potted plant or two near where you work increases creativity – by as much as 15%! And if you can get outside more often the results are even more impressive.  We were designed to experience our natural environments, not simply sit behind our desks in sterile office settings.  So, get some real plant life in your environment.  And just so you know, fake plants don’t offer the same increase in creativity.
3. Use Your Best Time – For most of us, our first order of official business each day is to sit at our computers and answer our emails.  As Seth Godin wrote recently, we are surrendering some of our best, most creative, and freshest time of the day to be reactive and not proactive.  Instead of doing something reactive when you first start your work day, use this precious time to work on that project that needs your best creativity.  When we are fresh, we give ourselves our best opportunity to be creative.

In our work as advancement professionals, we need to be more creative more often.  We need to be entrepreneurial and imaginative.  But being creative doesn’t have to be daunting.  By implementing these 3 simple ideas, you will give yourself the opportunities to be at your creative best.

Gad Saad, in The Consuming Instinct, has penned an interesting and deep read around the notion of biologically-driven choices.  He discusses how our biology drives our consumption behaviors in ways far more important than culture or socialization alone can account.

I thought about our work as advancement professionals when Gad covered the “variety effect” and our consumption of food.   Essentially, research has shown, quite conclusively, that people will eat more when more choice or variety is offered.  It’s why you should stay away from buffets when you are watching your weight.  The more food choices on the menu or the plate, the more we are likely to eat.  He suggests this is an evolutionary choice based primarily on the reality that our species, for eons, had to worry constantly about caloric uncertainty.  We didn’t know when our next meal was coming, so if we had a chance to eat now, we took it.  And if we have the opportunity to eat A LOT now, we hoarded.  Hence, the variety effect.

This finding makes good sense.  The problem with commonsensical findings, though, is that they often get misued.  We do this all the time.  For instance, most take the “variety effect” out of context and apply it to all sorts of situations.  But it doesn’t always work.

For instance, with all else being held constant, the “variety effect” would suggest that more choices in the number of funds available in a 401-k retirement plan would mean more participation and/or more money held back for retirement.  However, studies show that each additional 10 funds made available to employees yield a 1.5 -2% less participation rate in the 401-k program.  In other words, more variety equals reduced participation.

So, we know that the variety effect doesn’t work in all situations.

Often I work with clients who attempt to apply the “variety effect” to fundraising.  Specifically, when putting together case statements, they think having many choices for where a gift could be made should be viewed positively by donors.  They want to include any number of capital and endowment projects, special programs, scholarships, and other ongoing annual support options.  The idea is, the more the merrier.  You even will hear advancement leaders use language normally ascribed to food when they say, “we want to give our donors a menu of options.”  More choice of where to put your gift should mean more giving by donors.

Except it doesn’t work.  The thinking is faulty.

After having conducted many interviews with major donors and prospects I’m convinced that the number of gift-giving options does not positively correlate with increased giving.  Instead, major donors want to see a clear connection between the institution’s strategic priorities and the campaign’s priorities.  In other words, “menus” of choices are viewed – more often than not – as institutional wish lists that suggest the institution hasn’t done the heavy lifting of strategic visioning and planning.  Menus suggest an attitude of, “we’ll ask for everything and see if we get something.”  This perception doesn’t encourage more giving, it retards it!

Of course, in most instances you need to have some variety in your campaign gift options.  Typically, you will want capital, endowment, and program priorities, as well as an inclusion of your annual fund.   But it is not the variety that is the key variable in encouraging more giving.  It is far more important to show donors how the particular priorities you’ve included in your campaign will strategically advance the institution.  The “variety effect” may give us bigger waistlines (if we aren’t careful), but it won’t give us bigger gifts.

Have you stumbled upon Klout.com yet?  It’s a quantitative value analysis of your online influence.  Every facebook “like,” every tweet, every published blog, every status update,  and photo comment adds to your value as an online influencer.  A higher score means you have more influence with others in the virtual realm.

Recently, I read an article on Mashable entitled, “7 Surefire Ways to Increase Your Klout Score.”  Here are the 7:

1. Build a network.The key to increasing a Klout score is similar to finding success on the social web in general: Build a targeted, engaged network of people who would be legitimately interested in you and your content.
2. Create meaningful content. Adopt a strategy to create or aggregate meaningful content that your network loves to share with others. Provide links!
3. Engage. Actively engage with others in a helpful and authentic way. Ask questions, answer questions and create a dialogue with your followers.
4. Don’t scheme. Any gaming behaviors that fall outside the basic strategies will eventually catch up to you. For example, specifically targeting conversations with high Klout influencers will probably be more annoying than successful. If you keep focused on your network strategy and your content strategy, you’ll succeed.
5. Interact with everyone. Don’t be afraid to interact with Klout users with lower scores – it won’t hurt your own score. In fact, it helps build their score and in turn makes you more of an influencer.
6. Publish. Remember, you don’t have to make a movie or be elected to office to have power now. All you need to do is publish. Access to free publishing tools such as blogs, video and Twitter have provided users with an opportunity to have a real voice, so take advantage of these many platforms.
7. Keep at it. Don’t be discouraged by your score. It’s more important to just enjoy your social media experience and let the chips fall where they may.

Here’s an interesting development take on the above:  Look at the list again.  Change the title to, “7 Surefire Ways to Increase Success with Donors,” and replace the concept of “publish” with the idea of “communicate” – in which you use all available vehicles to communicate with your donors.

Now, instead of thinking only about social media and the online world, think about working with donors in the flesh-and-blood world of human-to-human contact.  Each of the above steps will make you a more influential development professional in the “real” world!

Here’s the reality:  Whether we use face-to-face visits, phone calls, emails, text messages, Twitter, facebook,  Google+, LinkedIn, videos, letters, cards, sign language, or smoke signals — engaging humans and encouraging them to act with generosity involves a similar process.

The communication platforms and environments may change.   But the human need to be heard, understood, and valued do not.  The ways to become more influential online don’t differ much from the ways to become more influential offline.

Now, go gain more klout (in both your virtual life and your real one)!

In our world today, there are many who chase after acknowledgment without a proficiency in any art form.  Their goal is not to develop a craft, aptitude, or skill.  They simply want to be famous.  And, because a proficiency in an art is absent, others wonder aloud as to how these folk achieve any level of lasting recognition.  These are celebrities.

On the other hand, there are those who focus on a craft, developing skills and aptitudes, and endeavoring to grow their competence in a given set of activities.  They work at their craft when others lounge.  They create when others aren’t watching, practicing their craft happily in obscurity.  In some cases – many cases – for years.  They are driven and fulfilled by the process of creating something, not by the approval of others.  These are artists.

Of course, in some instances, artists gain fame and become celebrities.  The masses take to their work and the artist becomes known.  But becoming famous and a celebrity is never the goal.  Doing the art is the goal.

Artists who become celebrities are acknowledged based on their talent,  efforts, and accomplishments.  Think Frank Sinatra, Pablo Picasso, Katharine Hepburn, or Aretha Franklin.  We respect the effort they make to hone their craft and recognize their talent.  We pay attention to what they create.  We recognize their authenticity and call them professionals.

But those who scramble to attract attention without the mooring of accomplishment garner scorn.  We don’t respect them because they are perceived as not having put forth unusual effort to achieve anything of value.  We view them as faux celebrities, having earned the mantle dishonestly.  Think Kim Kardashian.

Similarly, the most effective development professionals share characteristics with artists, not celebrities.    They work at being active listeners.  They practice the art of inquiry and work to become cheerfully persistent.  They enjoy the process of building authentic relationships with donors and engaging others in a cause.   They toil in the philanthropic vineyard, sometimes very quietly, for years.  They don’t seek the spotlight.  In fact (like many artists), they can be very uncomfortable in the spotlight.

In short, they focus on the work, not the “reward” of the gift.  Like becoming a celebrity for the artist, receiving a gift for the development professional is not the driving force.  It is simply a by-product of good work and lots of practice.