Welcome to Outrageous Hope

My daughter, Laura, told me yesterday that she wants to be a fundraiser. And that her next tattoo is going to be the saying, “Ask Boldly and With Outrageous Hope.” She took it from a fundraising letter I had written a few months ago in support of a benefit I was working on to help a friend.

Can I be any prouder? Hardly.

Laura, 23, has been doing volunteer work with our Youth Ministry and her Venture Scout crew since she was 12 and doing extended volunteer gigs with organizations like Habitat for Humanity, City Year and now the Los Angeles Maritime Institute’s Topsail program for four years. She’s been following the charitable sector from the fundraising side of things since I became editor of FundRaising Success more than six years ago.

I have been inspired by the people I’ve met in that time, humbled by their passion and dedication, and I’ve felt so blessed to be a small part of what it is they do. That my daughter feels the same way — to the point of wanting to join their ranks — makes me prouder than I can find the words to express.

It’s those feelings about fundraising and the people who do it that prompted me to name this brand-new blog Outrageous Hope. (Ha … who knew when I originally wrote that phrase that it would get so much mileage!) The posts will be penned alternately by me, by FS Managing Editor Janet Spavlik and by a roster of guest bloggers.

I hope – perhaps outrageously – that what we write here will be as inspiring to our readers as what our readers do is to us. It’s a tall order … but we’ll try.

Everyone here at FS is excited to finally have our own blog – not to mention a little nervous. We’re looking forward to sharing our thoughts with you in this less formal medium, hearing your comments and engaging in a more immediate conversation with you than is allowed by print.