Knowing your own mind makes you a stronger fundraiser

Sometimes we look at donors and their brains the way we look at the inert form of a frog we’re dissecting. It’s as if we can know everything about how their brains work, we can raise a lot more money.

That’s true, up to a point.

There’s another brain you need to pay attention to if you want to do well in fundraising:

Your own brain.

Because fundraising is not just a procedure enact on the donor’s brain. It’s the interaction between your brain and the donor’s.

A helpful post at the Bloomerang Blog brings this out: Neuroscience Meets Fundraising: Gentle Art of Teaching JOY of Giving.

It’s about the internal work of fundraising “… from a place of loving and giving, rather than a place of hating (“fundraising is yucky”) and taking.”

Here’s how it can work

• A prospective donor, ‘suffering’ from lack of meaning and happiness in life…
  
• Puts their potential for added joy and purpose in the hands of a trusted fundraiser who…
  
• Facilitates ‘feel good’ joyful philanthropy.
  

When you see that your fundraising enters the life of a donor and makes things better for her, you are free to do your best work. Best for your organization, and best for the donor.