Fundraising Peers Offer Tips for Success

What are your keys to success?

Katya Andresen, vice president of marketing for Network for Good and one of our Fundraising Professionals of the Year: The key to all marketing — and fundraising — is simple: always, always, appeal to the perspective of your audience, not your own. As a mentor of mine [Sharyn Sutton, founder and president of Sutton Group, a consultancy that helps groups working for social change] says, it’s not about teaching people to value your cause. It’s about showing people how your cause relates to their existing values. This is the single most important lesson I’ve ever learned, and I say it ad nauseam in my book, in workshops and to anyone who will listen.