Future Fundraising Now

Some “alternative facts” that might be crushing your fundraising

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by

Jeff Brooks
in

You’ve heard about “alternative facts” (that is, lies). They live in places beyond politics. There are many of them in fundraising, as noted by Jason’s Blog, at 5 “Alternative Facts” for Advancement Professionals:

  • Alternative Fact 1: Donor fatigue. (No such thing!)
  • Alternative Fact 2: Asking for a planned gift should only occur after you know a donor well. (You can approach a donor with the idea any time.)
  • Alternative Fact 3: The best development professionals raise money by themselves. (It takes a village to do fundraising well.)
  • Alternative Fact 4: Annual giving is not worth our time. (Small-donor fundraising is the foundation of healthy major donor and planned giving programs.)
  • Alternative Fact 5: The “Working Board.” (Board members should be significant donors.)

Don’t let these alternative facts destroy your fundraising program!

    Comments

    4 responses to “Some “alternative facts” that might be crushing your fundraising”

    1. Brice Avatar
      Brice

      Great short list. I like this a lot.

    2. Brice Avatar
      Brice

      Great short list. I like this a lot.

    3. Anne Taff Avatar
      Anne Taff

      I disagree about “The Working Board” – if we restrict our boards to only those with resources to give significant financial contributions, the nonprofit sector will miss out on the innovations and forward-thinking that adding diverse voices brings. I know that not all major donors are alike, but it would be hard to argue that major donors as a whole are currently representative of the breadth of our communities – whether we are looking at profession, income, race, age, national origin, zip code, veteran status, etc. We need to re-examine what a fundraiser on our board “looks like” and cannot be so lazy as to assume a successful volunteer fundraiser is someone with the right connections and the right amount of wealth.

    4. Anne Taff Avatar
      Anne Taff

      I disagree about “The Working Board” – if we restrict our boards to only those with resources to give significant financial contributions, the nonprofit sector will miss out on the innovations and forward-thinking that adding diverse voices brings. I know that not all major donors are alike, but it would be hard to argue that major donors as a whole are currently representative of the breadth of our communities – whether we are looking at profession, income, race, age, national origin, zip code, veteran status, etc. We need to re-examine what a fundraiser on our board “looks like” and cannot be so lazy as to assume a successful volunteer fundraiser is someone with the right connections and the right amount of wealth.

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    The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It’s not about any technology, medium, or technique. It’s about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It’s already here. More.

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    Jeff BrooksJeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 35 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com. More.

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    The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It’s not about any technology, medium, or technique. It’s about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It’s already here. More.

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    About the blogger

    Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 30 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com.