Nonprofit Navel-Gazing Syndrome [Nonprofit Diseases]

Does your newsletter (and/or website) contain any of the following things?

• News about back-office staff.
• Photo of well-heeled donor presenting a giant check to your organization.
• Lots of statistics the demonstrate your organization’s excellence.
• Articles with the sole purpose of “educating” donors.

If you answered yes to any of these, your organization may suffer from Nonprofit Navel-Gazing Syndrome (NPNGS). This condition causes nonprofits to believe that their own understanding of the world must be shared by others — especially donors. This pedantic approach makes for boring fundraising. Which is not effective.

Thing is, donors simply aren’t you. They’re less schooled in the fine points of what it takes to accomplish your mission. Their view of what you do is less nuanced than your view. They are drawn to simplistic, even incomplete descriptions of your work. Even the strongest philosophical argument can leave them cold.

Organizations with advanced NPNGS sometimes don’t even want support from donors who haven’t graduated from their seminar in how they do their work.

The sad truth is, they inevitably learn that there are few donors willing to spend the time getting up to speed on them.

Donors are interested in you because of the outcomes of your work. Not the process of how you do it.

You are your donors’ agent in their mission to make the world better. That should be the topic of all your fundraising. Not the inner workings of the organization. Not the accomplishments of staff. Not the need for raised consciousness or philosophical buy-in.

Your top-notch staff, your wonderful events, your well-honed methodology, your superior mindset — all these things are part of your uniqueness and your ability to accomplish your mission. But donors aren’t interested in that. They just want to make good things happen that they can understand. Swallow your pride and meet donors where they are.

(This is the first of a series that will appear on Tuesdays for awhile.)

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