All systems with donors decay. All systems suffer from entropy. Your best moves plans, reports, and even measurables are not enough to have a deep connection with donors.
Why? Because giving is a heart issue, and no system created can capture and fulfill deep heart issues.
Donors need more than a newsletter to feel connected. They need to engage in the cause so that the act of engagement does more than just transact money. It needs to feed those deepest heart desires....
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Yes, donors grow tired--but not of giving. Giving builds people up. It turns on our passion juices and makes us better people. Giving produces joy and a deep sense of meaning and satisfaction. But, if giving is so good for us what makes donors stop giving?
Rebecca Ruby notes that people stop giving because they are not fatigued but they are tired of being poorly treated by the nonprofit. Instead of treating them as a donor who matters, nonprofits treat them as ATMs and flood them with...
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Donor fatigue is a fundraising adage whose time has come to be sent to the burn pile. How did we ever come up with such an offensive idea? Let’s look at some simple terms . . .
Donor Fatigue— Donors will get tired of hearing about the same need over and over again and then stop giving, or they will run of out of passion for our cause and stop giving. In other words, “We are not raising any money—let’s blame the donors. We can call it donor fatigue.”
Philanthropy, by definition, is the...
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A former boss once instructed all 20 of us in the development department to color a sheet she had copied from a Barbie coloring book. She then posted these, Andy-Warhol-style in the hallway of our development office.
In the scene, Barbie is daydreaming of what she will be when she grows up and guesses that a career as a fundraiser might be fun and easy—lots of fancy charity dinners to attend, friends to make, and all for a good cause!
(It was my unfortunate task to explain to our...
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