Hugging it Out: The Road to Ruin |
Nov 18, 2009 |
Marketing maven Seth Godin recently offered a blog posting on the Pareto principle, which you’ve no doubt seen applied in marketing theory, that suggests that for many events roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes, by offering some interesting case studies from the book industry.
Unlike Godin, I don’t have the #1 rated marketing blog as measured by Advertising Age, but permit me to take issue with his closing line: “Don't treat people the same, find the ones that matter more to you, and hug them.”
Some will object to not treating everyone the same, which doesn’t appeal to democratic sensibilities. But at Mission Increase Foundation we actually agree with the Pareto principle by suggesting that the greatest impact for your cause will be generated by the smallest group in your constituency, your owners, which we call Os.
My beef with Godin is in his final admonition: “hug them”. Other bloggers at Groundswell and The Agitator promptly heaped unmitigated praise on Godin, but I want to suggest that hugging is the road to ruin.
For years now, nonprofit fundraisers have been admonished to do more to value their donors: write more handwritten notes, make more phone calls on anniversaries, attend more bar mitzvahs, laugh at more jokes, take more donors to the airport, and, well, get out there and just hug ‘em! All these activities fall under a loose umbrella commonly called “friendraising”, the idea being that if you make friends with your best donors, they’ll give you lots of money.
There are so many problems with this approach! Fundraisers burn out from constant mandates to “do more”, and consequently leave their jobs every 12 to 18 months to start new “friendships” somewhere else. Astute donors see the friendraising scheme as the quid pro quo
arrangement it is and play it to their advantage. (I knew of one donor to a university who managed to get a weary fundraiser to personally chauffeur him to each home football game for years this way.) Finally, entire organizations can drift from their mission and lose their ability to issue difficult calls to action, as they are too busy kowtowing to their “friends”.
Worse than any of this, “friendraising” gets in the way of what really should be going on, which is the organization holding champions accountable to growth in the cause, and champions holding organizations accountable to pass along their expertise. When the operating paradigm is one of learning, friendship takes a back seat. Think back to the best teachers in your life; those that challenged you to grow in ways you never thought possible. Chances are, you were not friends with all of these teachers. Perhaps you didn’t even like them. But you benefitted and you are grateful.
Please, be friendly, but don’t friendraise.
Be affectionate and passionate, but whatever you do, don’t hug your champions.
