Fundraising lessons from “Gilligan’s Island”

When I was a kid, I loved one of the dumbest TV shows ever created: Gilligan’s Island.

In case you don’t know the premise of the show, there wasn’t much to it: a boat with a group of suspiciously varied archetypal passengers was wrecked on an uninhabited island. Every program involved their attempts to get off the island. Most episodes, they almost made it — but something would go wrong.

With such a diversity of people you’d think they’d have what it took to get them off the island.

Those wacky castaways were a lot like us fundraisers. We think some magic ingredient is going to take us where we want to go…

• Having tons of money like Mr. and Mrs. Howell is helpful, but it doesn’t get you off the island.
  
• Being famous like Ginger is a real asset, but it doesn’t get you off the island.
  
• Being smart like the Professor is great, but it doesn’t get you off the island.
  
• Being super nice like Mary Ann is a very good thing, but it doesn’t get you off the island.
  
• Having leadership skills like the Captain comes in handy, but it doesn’t get you off the island.
  
• Even being a lovable goofball, the star of the show, doesn’t get you there. You’re still stuck on the island.
  

For the Gilligan’s Island folks, all that great stuff just added up to a series of wacky failures. One big fatally flawed scheme after another that kept them on the island.

Here’s how you get off the island:

• Show up every day.
  
• Use all your tools and all your gifts.
  
• Have lots of small ideas (ten small successes can get you off the island).
  
• Learn from your mistakes.
  
• Be willing to pay for help.
  

Do all that, and you’ll find that your great qualities or magic ingredients will produce exciting results from time to time.

The real progress — it always happens in incremental, un-wacky ways. Not as entertaining as the misadventures on Gilligan’s Island, but I think you can live with that.