Why push the limits in fundraising?

Scene: I’m a young teen musician, rehearsing chamber music under the coaching of a music teacher. We’re really drilling down on one particular passage of the music where it is supposed to suddenly get soft, and then get loud again.

You probably know that one of the core features of music is how soft or loud it is. It’s a large part of what makes music exciting, soothing, beautiful — expressive in any way. Composers usually mark how soft or loud the music should be.

As a kid, I understood this basic idea. But not quite. My range was mainly from medium-soft to medium-loud, with moments of “as loud as possible” now and then.

Our coach wasn’t having it. They kept calling for more. Then less. Never satisfied by what we were doing.

Exasperated, I started sarcastically overdoing it: ranging from nearly inaudible soft to blasting loud.

It sounded great.

I had stumbled upon the secret: To get your money’s worth out of dynamic range in music, you have to go for it. Push the limits. If you end up overdoing it, no problem. It’s easy to ease back a little.

When you start somewhere in the middle, with a narrow dynamic range, it’s hard to improve it.

I’m not trying to give you a music lesson. This is about fundraising too.

Because so much fundraising is cautious, bland, in the middle, with a narrow range. It’s probably because so many people (or the committees that rule them) are afraid of extremes. Go easy on the emotions. Dial back the urgency. Instead of describing a problem donors will want to help overcome, just paint a gentle picture of a situation, usually where things are just okay. And hope that’s enough to move donors to action.

The advantage: Nobody will feel the slightest twinge of discomfort. It’s safe.

The disadvantage: People won’t be moved enough to act.

And when you create a message like that, you can’t really energize it up. You have to start over again.

Want effective fundraising? Overdo it. Give it too much energy. Strong urgency.

That’s how you get the good stuff.