Fundraising

Many people, including myself initially, see fundraising as a necessary evil. Thankfully this is not the case and I am so grateful that I have been able to experience the joy in inviting other people to be able to join in the work that they care about as much as you do. My paraphrase of what Sasha Dichter says so well in his manifesto on fundraising; essentially what we are doing in fundraising is saying to people, “you are great at making money, I am great at making change (fill in your mission here). You care about (your mission here). So you keep doing what you are doing and I will keep doing and let’s put these two things together.” Henri Nouwen says a similar thing in a more spiritual way in A Spirituality of Fundraising. If you haven’t crossed this threshold let’s start there. Then once you do I have some ideas below on how you can be more effective in fundraising.