Does Following Fundraising Best Practices Help or Hurt?

What's worse in fundraising: Doing what everyone is doing? Or following your own path?

The answer, of course, is it depends.

The downside of carefully following "best practices" is articulated by The Agitator, at "Losing Donors In The Sea of Sameness." They call it herd behavior and "sloppy, copycat practices."

Which is frequently true. But not always. Some best practices really are best—at least for now. A best practice can lose its power for a couple of reasons.