“What’s happening?”
“What’s the latest?”
“What’s going on?”
“What’s new?”
These are the questions, either verbalized or acted upon, that drive a good bit of human interaction and behavior. We greet people with various forms of these questions and, because of that, we act – at least partly – based on the responses.
The reality, though, is that in the realm of what really matters to the human experience there is little new or novel or fresh. Through all of our anxiety about the future, breathless statements about breaking, current news, or beliefs that, “this time it is different,” it rarely is.
It’s easy for the shiny, new thing to capture our attention. “AI going to revolutionize fundraising!” for example.
We can get depressed by the almost always bleak prognostications for the future. “The next presidential election is going to make raising money difficult!” for instance.
Some years ago, it is said that Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, asked Warren Buffet, the multi-billionaire investor who is known for identifying solid (if not boring) companies, buying them at a cheap price, and then, holding onto them for long periods of time, “Your investment style is very simple. It is not complicated. You are one of the richest people in the world. Why don’t more people simply copy your strategy?”
To which Warren Buffet replied, “because no one wants to get rich slowly.”
Doing great advancement work is rather simple. It is not complicated. But, it doesn’t happen quickly.
To get the best advancement results, we must stay consistent and focused on the basics of identifying the best volunteers and donor prospects, engaging them meaningfully, and inviting them personally.
And, we have to not get distracted by “what’s new?”
Because it’s rare that anything truly is.
