The Fundraising Talent Podcast
Business:Non-Profit
My conversation today with Kevin reminded me of all the dangerous assumptions that we sometimes make about how fundraising really works and of the practices that often compel us to think about what we do. After 33 years of experience leading development programs for both local and international organizations. Kevin's not afraid to challenge people’s thinking when it comes to supporting good causes. For example, how many of our challenges originate from the belief that the only way to raise more money is to accumulate more donors? And, once donor acquisition is running amok, do hoards of $20-40 gifts lead one to assume that these gifts accurately reflect the capability of their donors? Do contemporary fundraising practices convince us that our donors are broke and therefore perpetuate our low expectations?
Kevin insists that we need to treat all our donors like we would a major donor. He shared with me his experience of helping an organization go from from 14 to 40 major gifts officers after they came to the realization that they had built their new donor acquisition effort on the wrong assumptions. When conditioned on low expectations, these programs have a tendency to create an enormous volume of activity that makes it nearly impossible to discern a good signal from all the noise. Without being able to effectively change the nature of the relationship, these programs quickly evolve into an unhealthy dependency by keeping margins low and attrition high.
As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. We are gearing up for a big fall and of you’d like to be a part of the line-up, reach out and let’s hear what you’ve got to say.
How can sector leaders improve the donor experience?
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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