Giving is Good
Most donors – most people – appreciate feeling special. Most folk enjoy feeling admired, important, distinguished, and significant. People, generally, respond favorably to feeling valued. On the other hand, almost no one likes to feel targeted. To feel like they are the only one being asked. Or that they are the first one being…
I listened recently to an experienced and capable gift officer talk about how good she feels when a donor makes a gift “for a meaningful purpose.” “What does that mean, exactly?” I asked. “It means,” she continued, “that I have to be convinced that the mission or purpose of the organization I raise money for…
American philosopher, Josiah Royce, coined the term, “beloved community,” early in the 1900s. But it wasn’t until the late 1950s that the phrase became more well known. In his 1957 speech, Birth of a New Nation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “the aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community.” The concept…
If you watched Leonardo DiCaprio portray Jordan Belfort in the 2013 film, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” you probably recall the scene in which DiCaprio’s Belfort asks the stockbrokers on his team to, “sell me this pen!” In the movie, the stated purpose of this exercise was for the stockbrokers to hone their sales pitches…
Some advancement professionals focus on the work. For instance: generating the segmented distribution list for the next direct mail solicitation, or designing the invitation for the annual donor recognition dinner, or reviewing the latest wealth indicator scores for the upcoming prospect management meeting, or creating the agenda for the next Board Advancement Committee meeting, or…
In the days before omnipresent and mobile internet devices, I once sat in a 100-person theatre-style classroom at Harvard University’s Management Development Program and watched in awe as a master-teacher recognized each student by name and by job-title. This faculty member had never been with our group previously and, yet, knew almost everyone’s particulars. A…
Humans are exceptionally artful when it comes to providing reasons for not behaving in ways that are in their long-term interests. For instance, ask people why they don’t eat more healthily, exercise more consistently, or save more for retirement, etc., and you’re likely to end up with a whole host of detailed reasons why, for…
Here are 5 lessons the pandemic has taught us about fundraising: If your goal is to engage donors well, you should spend far more time asking about and learning from them than you do sharing your case for support; The narratives of how your institution impacts those you serve – i.e., your mission – are…
As the first day of the new year dawns, there are fact-based reasons to hope that: The COVID-19 pandemic devolves into an endemic virus with seasonal surges like the common cold or influenza. The long-studied MRNA vaccine technology will help end so many chronic diseases such as HIV and many cancers. The record-setting $471.44 billion…
Being invited to the dance is not the same as being invited to dance. But we often treat them similarly. For instance, we may wonder why an alumni event (either in-person or virtual) doesn’t draw as many people as we had hoped. “They were invited to the event,” we grouse. Or, we might question why…