Your donor is a hero — and what that means to for your fundraising

Virtually every myth you’ve ever heard, and most of the books you’ve read and movies you’ve seen have pretty much the same plot.

Joseph Campbell, an American scholar, “discovered” this in the middle of the last century. He called it the “monomyth” or the Hero’s Journey.

Every hero goes through the same basic pattern on his or her journey of transformation.

And so does every donor.

For donors, the cycle starts with “ordinary life,” then moves to knowing about the cause to caring about the cause, to giving. Then the donor experiences transformation … until she returns to ordinary life, ready to go through the cycle again. But each time the cycle gets easier and quicker.

Knowing what that pattern is can help you write better, more interesting, more resonant stories. It’s also useful in your own life — the story you are making by what you do. When you understand the Hero’s Journey pattern, it can guide your life decisions.

But there’s one more thing you can do with the Hero’s Journey: You can do better fundraising.

That’s because your donors go through that same Hero’s Journey as they move toward giving. The Donor Journey maps almost exactly to the monomyth Hero’s Journey. And knowing that helps you as a fundraiser be relevant to the donor…

Which means you can raise more money.