Your organization exists to do something good. You hire people who are skilled at making the good happen. You measure your effectiveness at it. You are properly proud of that.
But when it comes to fundraising, you have to do something painful: You have to look at the ways and places where the good has not yet happened.
It’s painful. You exist to do something good, but you have to talk about the things you have not accomplished. It feels like you are revealing your “failure.”
Some people some nonprofit people aren’t able to do this. It’s just too painful.
They can only focus on the good they’ve already done. They present the world through their own rose-tinted glasses. Assuming that people will say “Yes, please, I want more of that” — and donate.
Except they don’t. The status quo is not interesting. Donors want to solve problems. So they need to see problems.
The glass-half-full approach is important — after the donor gives. That’s when you must tell them that their giving makes a difference and really does help solve the problem.
If you or anyone else suffers from rosetintitis to the extent that you are unable to reveal the good that hasn’t yet happened, you may not be a fundraiser. You have a lot to offer, but it might not be in asking donors to give.
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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