Changed Minds and Kindred Spirits

Have a fundraising challenge you want to crack? Weary of doing the same old, same old yet hoping for different outcomes?  Do you want the over-the-top results that come from superior strategy?

Email me with your particular problem, and I’ll arrange a quick consultation offering you a practical solution you can implement. I may even use your situation to share with my readers. Names are changed, of course!

Mia and I spoke last week regarding her organization’s donor acquisition program for 2016. Mia is the development director for an environmental organization in the Northwest.

As she reviewed her plans, two words kept ringing in my head: “advocacy” and “fundraising.” What struck me was how she seemed to be conflating the two.

What?

Advocating for your cause or organization is the effort directed toward persuasion. You’re seeking to persuade others to see the strength of your cause and essentially agree with you. Nothing wrong with this.

One of the key responsibilities of governing boards is to advocate for the organizations they represent to their own networks of colleagues and friends. This creates understanding, legitimacy and acceptance in the community or communities in which the organization operates.

Advocacy is not fundraising, however.

Although mutually supporting and parallel, advocating for your cause or organization is decidedly not the same as raising money for it.

Fundraising is more akin to a strategic search than an exercise in arm-twisting. To some unfortunately, there’s not much distinction between these.

Principle 4 of The Eight Principles^™ is "Learn & Plan^™." This is the principle of preparation. You first learn who your potential investors are by values and visions, and then you plan how to reach them.

This is quite different from a land-rush approach to fundraising. That’s where you dash across the starting line as soon the gun goes off seeking to grab everything in sight.

This method does raise money.

It raises money now—but very little for the future. It’s the operating principle of those group-ask venues. You know, the ones where you’re cajoled to attend by a friend or acquaintance, and then you're hit with a high-powered pitch and pressured ask as you eat your breakfast or lunch.

Anyone who’s been on the front line in pulling off such venues knows the panicked sprint they always are. They are one-and-done, again and again and again.

These things are right out of the playbook for selling vacation time-shares.

And yet, they continue to be very popular. Sounds like a bad dream for those hapless souls who attend.

Strategic, sustainable fundraising efforts are exercises in seeking. You’re seeking kindred spirits. When you know who you’re looking for, the search gets a lot easier—and a lot more productive.

When you’ve identified your kindred spirits, bringing new investors into the fold takes way less effort and you keep a heckuva lot more of them going forward. That’s because you’re not wasting effort trying to wring a gift out of those who aren’t likely to be persuaded.