3 Fundraising Fundamentals to Remember

By Pamela Barden

There will always be something taking attention from fundraising, so we have to repeat ourselves. For the next 10 months, politicians are going to be vying for attention in the marketplace, and in some regions, we will be competing with political mailings ad nauseam (or it may feel that way to some of us). A reporter may decide to do an investigation into a charity that gets extrapolated to imply all nonprofits are corrupt. Weather brings tornadoes, droughts, hurricanes, fires, snow, mudslides, sleet, lighting strikes and more. Sinks overflow, cars break down and kids need new shoes.

In short, our message is always competing for a tiny slice of a person’s attention, and it can get lost in the surrounding noise. The fundraiser who sends an email, mails a newsletter or posts something on Facebook and then sits back to wait is forgetting that donors are not all that focused on our cause, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves that they are.

Do you have a great story to tell? Is there a tremendous opportunity to really change the world? Was there a small step made that could have a huge impact in the future? Give your donors plenty of opportunities to hear about it. If you are serious about cutting through the clutter and cacophony of life, you have to have something worth saying—and then say it more than once.

This old dog wishes you much learning and fundraising success in the coming months because, as Albert Einstein said, “Once you stop learning, you start dying.”