There is a straightforward, fundamental, and easy-to-understand distance concept when it comes to advancement:
“We can’t be exceptional in this work if we aren’t close to our donors.”
Most advancement practitioners will find this an easy concept to agree with.
And yet, many gift officers complain that their calendars are so cluttered with institutional meetings that getting out of the office for donor visits becomes difficult.
And yet, the plans for most annual giving programs advocate utilizing more and more passive communication channels and fewer interactive communication channels with donors (i.e., more email/texts and less phone).
And yet, more and more advancement leaders are asking the question, “how can we use technology to engage directly with our donors?” instead of asking, “how can we use technology to help us better engage directly with our donors?”
And yet, more CEOs and presidents are asking, “why aren’t we raising more money?” but are not consistently engaging and building relationships with major gift donors themselves.
Perhaps a goal for each of us in the New Year is to not only agree with this fundamental principle of distance in advancement, but to actually behave like we agree with it.
We really can’t be exceptional in this work, if we aren’t close to our donors.
