The Fundraising Talent Podcast
Business:Non-Profit
I spent most of my career believing that the myriad of arms-length tactics that consume most fundraising plans (GivingTuesday, direct response, special events, etc. ) were the problem. Then I encountered a simple insight. One of the earliest scholars in the fundraising community, Paul Schervish, explained that it was important to distinguish between those efforts that lead people to become givers in the first place and those that lead some donors to make larger than average gifts or to increase their giving. The inability to make sense of such a distinction was the problem I didn’t see early in my career. Following Schervish’s logic, we encourage our clients to make sense of those efforts that most effectively yield their initial gifts and those that ensure the subsequent gift.
What was especially encouraging about today’s podcast conversation was learning that Julia is encouraging her clients to make a very similar distinction. Julia encourages her clients to make sense of the difference between what is an outcome of marketing versus what should be expected of fundraising. Julia explains that marketing strategies can be counted on to get people’s attention and generate the initial gift, while we should rely on fundraising strategies to ensure the cultivation of meaningful relationships and the subsequent gifts that accompany them. For those who haven’t made this distinction, Julia wants them to ask themselves why they would communicate with individuals they don’t know the same way they would those with whom they have a relationship. She also warns that appealing to everyone the same way is effectively not appealing to anyone.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email me. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.
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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