The Fundraising Talent Podcast
Business:Non-Profit
Today I enjoyed the opportunity to talk with best-selling author and 4x TED-speaker Margaret Heffernan about her new book Uncharted: How To Map the Future. Our conversation began with what she refers to as prediction addiction; our deep-seated need to predict the future. Throughout my fundraising career, I have observed this addiction to prediction playing out in our being hesitant to call a donor, running wealth screen reports as if they were credit checks, and criticizing each other’s forecasts of the effects of yet-to-be enacted tax legislation. It all stems from a desire to avoid what we fear the most: uncertainty.
As I shared with Margaret, there never seems to be a shortage of those in our space who will try to capitalize on our addiction. They will sell us anything that makes us feel more content in a world that is not deterministic. Heffernan calls this the commercialization of fantasy: “the belief that the future is knowable, that all life is susceptible to certain laws if we could only figure out what they were, and that there are some special people or processes that can reveal what the future holds.“
As always, we are grateful to OneCause for being our sponsor. And if you’d like more information about Responsive’s training programs, email me at jason@responsivefundraising.com
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Are fundraisers becoming more discerning about where they can thrive?
Are nonprofit leaders designing resilience into their organizations?
What effect will the FTX Bankman-Fried fiasco have on fundraising?
Are fundraisers creating better roles for their donors to play?
Why are nonprofits afraid of their own obsolescence?
How does unseen diversity impact a fundraiser’s journey?
What if the gift economy informed more of our fundraising practices?
Should fundraisers let their board members off the hook?
Conversation w/ the editors of Collecting Courage: Part Two
Conversation w/ the editors of Collecting Courage: Part One
Are nonprofits underestimating the value they afford their corporate sponsors?
Can fundraising learn how to have higher expectations of relationships?
Are donors deliberately hoarding money in donor-advised funds?
How can fundraisers improve their outcomes by embracing the obvious?
Will the next generation of non-profiteers go about fundraising differently?
How can fundraisers ensure their organizations more than transactions?
Do our board recruitment strategies align with our DEI aspirations?
What if more nonprofits accurately reflected the communities they serve?
Does fundraising have a bad case of shiny new toy syndrome?
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