Without a keen grasp of the applicable rules, it’s hard to be good at any game or activity.
Imagine, for instance, that you and your friends decided to play a card game. You all gathered around a table and one friend dealt each person 7 cards, placed the remaining cards in a deck at the center of the table, looked at you and announced, “Your move!”
If you hadn’t already decided on what game you might be playing you probably would be a bit confused. You might respond something like, “My move? To do what? What game are we playing?”
When we don’t have a familiarity with the rules and the objectives of a game. . . or, when we don’t have an understanding of what strategy to use based on what the score might be. . . or, when we don’t have an underlying sense of our own tendencies and strengths when playing a game. . .or, when we are just beginning a task, an activity, or playing a game, we might find it terribly difficult to make any move, much less an effective one.
A good way of framing this observation is through our advancement work. Before we are ready to invite a gift from a major gift donor, for example, we need to understand who they are as people and as donors. We need to understand why they are motivated to give at this time, what values are being expressed through their giving, and, who might be influencing their giving.
Too often, we rush to invite a gift without understanding the rules for each of our major gift donors.
And, too often, we fail to grasp that the best next move is to better understand the rules.
