Before you know anything else about fundraising, there are three basic assumptions you should know about it:
- Fundraising is all about specificity. It’s the specific change you’re asking the donor to help make with their gift. Abstractions and generalities fail to move donors to action.
- Fundraising is about building relationships. Don’t think of donors as ATMs that dispense money from time to time. Think of them as friends who do cool things with you. It’s a two-way relationship. Both sides give and both sides receive.
- Fundraising transforms donors. When you know they amazing things that happen in their lives when they give to you, you’ll enjoy fundraising a lot more. And you’ll do a better job.
Working with these basic truths is the key to success.
From the archives of the now-defunct podcast Fundraising Is Beautiful. This episode first aired on February 4, 2015. Listen here:
(If you don’t see the audio player below, click here to listen.)
Jeff 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.
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