Thursday, May 2, 2013

An Ah-Ha Moment


I had a real ah-ha moment this week. 

I find it a bit embarrassing to admit that my epiphany was the direct result of a random Google search.  But, it was, and sometimes you take inspiration when it comes. 

In any case, I stumbled upon a blog post by a fundraising consultant/prospect researcher named David Lawson (read Lawson's post here).   Lawson contends that we've missed the boat in our efforts to be donor-centered.  What we really need to be – and what our donors want us to be – is mission-centered.  He notes that when he gave his grandson a train, he wasn't waiting around for the thank you note (though I would argue that's still no excuse for not sending one!), but what he wanted was to see his grandson enjoying it. 

Lawson challenges us to "imagine the thank you letter being replaced by the mission letter."  Our donors, he argues, should "form bonds not with the askers, but with the people whose lives they have impacted."  That's pretty deep and I've been pondering exactly what that means for a few days now.

My best conclusion thus far is that the real sweet spot comes in the intersection of the donor-centered and mission-centered approach.  What we all really want to know is that what we do makes a difference. When I donate, I don't want to be thanked for writing a check. I want to be thanked for making it possible to make progress on an issue I care deeply about.

If we go back to Lawson's train analogy, he really, I believe, wants to know not just that his grandson likes playing with any trains, but specifically with the train he picked out. There's mission and donor-centeredness there together.

My role as a fundraiser – a broker of dreams – is to not only appreciate and provide positive reinforcement for giving, but to be the translator for how giving becomes progress toward a better world.  I suspect we don't always do that translation very well because we assume that real progress is big and splashy and game-changing.  But, the reality is, most nonprofits are working on really tough, complicated problems – issues that have not been resolved by the marketplace or government intervention.  So the progress may at times be slow, or in fits and starts, or maybe in the form of learning what doesn’t work. 

Yes, game changing moments occur.  But I need to be sharing all of the progress along the way with our donors, because they make all of that progress possible.  And, I need to frame all of that impact from a donor-centered perspective. 

So, I'm thinking about my role a little differently.  I'm a translator:  I translate an individual donor's choice to be philanthropic into impact.   I've got some brushing up to do on my vocabulary and I'm still not sure I know all the grammatical rules for being such a translator, but I'm eager to try.

What's your response to Lawson's idea of replacing the thank you letter with the mission letter?  How would you do it?   

1 comment:

  1. There is no substitute for saying thanks. So that always needs to be done. As I interpret what Lawson is after, the thank you can/should be made mission-specific. That is, the donor is not being thanked for the check and support in general, but in much more specific terms. Those terms might relate the gift/giver to a person who benefits, to a land parcel that is saved, to some defined aspect of a larger cause. Thus, the gift is particularized, personalized; connections that can run deep are started or sustained. This approach, I think, requires knowing one's donors well so that the question, "Will this work with her or him?" can be answered well. Meanwhile, I am still pondering whether "translator" is the best term to use for the fundraiser who facilitates these connections. Seems too "wordy," not action-driven enough. Worth thinking about some more. -- JKR

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