How many prospective funders agree to meet as a simple courtesy only to pass up the opportunity that has been presented to them? What if a better understanding of how corporations go about their decision-making processes could reduce the fundraiser’s workload and increase the likelihood of winning a corporation’s support? These are the kind of questions that today’s conversation with Lori raises. Lori reminds nonprofit leaders that, while they certainly see their cause as a top priority, unless they have caught the attention of their prospective funders in a meaningful way, they’re simply one of many items on a to-do list that never stops growing.Lori is the author of The Boardroom Playbook: The Not So Ordinary Guide to Corporate Funding for Your Purpose Driven Organization. Lori’s book is an effort to ensure that nonprofit leaders don’t knock on the doors of corporate funders without first making sense of the dynamics that play out among those on other side of the table. Lori is the founder and CEO of Growth Owl, LLC, a consultancy aimed at empowering nonprofits, startups, and associations with the tools needed to achieve their fundraising goals. Before bombarding our prospective corporate funders with exhausting proposals, Lori wants nonprofit leaders to avoid the drama, design brevity in their communications, and understand the nuances of corporate giving.The Fundraising Talent Podcast is underwritten by Responsive Fundraising, a professional learning community committed to helping clients create places where fundraising can thrive. For more information, message our managing partner, Michael J. Dixon. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Angie’s journey as a writer has always been about making sense of leadership, taking risks, and helping people realize their potential. Her latest book, Bet On You, is about demystifying what it means to take risks and seeing risk as the path to opportunity rather than getting anxious and worried about what might come of our decisions. Today’s conversation with Angie reminds me of what we just heard from our previous guests: those who dare to make the boldest asks are those who achieve the most extraordinary results.Our conversation has us grappling with the question of whether nonprofits are reliant on too much play-it-safe fundraising. Angie wants us to remember that there comes a time when playing it safe no longer works. How many of our organizations have been checking all the right boxes and playing by the rules only to realize that we’re not achieving our goals and would really enjoy more fun and excitement in our work. Angie suggests that, when we get to this point, we have to look at risk as an opportunity to lean into rather than an impediment to fear and avoid. The Fundraising Talent Podcast is underwritten by Responsive Fundraising, a professional learning community committed to helping clients create places where fundraising can thrive. For more information, message our managing partner, Michael J. Dixon. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I confess, I don’t read a lot of books about fundraising; I have always found them to be either too tactical or little more than chatter about manipulative gimmicks aimed at getting us into Mrs Smith’s pocketbook. However, Amy and Josh’s BeneFactors: Why Some Fundraising Professionals Always Succeed is neither of these. Rather, it’s a refreshing and enjoyable read written by two fundraisers who are both committed to their craft and understand the complexity of what it means to raise extraordinary dollars in the twenty-first century. Josh and Amy set out to create a book that not only inspires a new generation of fundraising leaders, but also provides a practical guide for nonprofit executives to raise up new development professionals for the field.In our conversation today, we cover a lot of territory, reflecting on Amy and Josh’s thoughts about how we relate to donors, what sets a good fundraiser apart from a great one, and what role mentors play in our professional journeys. I especially enjoyed hearing Amy and Josh talk about what it means to achieve “relentless alignment” with our donors and what impact their faith traditions have had in their pursuits as fundraisers.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.If your organization wants to make sense of raising extraordinary levels of support by way of meaningful relationships and higher expectations, our team at Responsive would welcome the opportunity to help you do that. If you’re interested in learning more, email me and/or our managing partner, Michael Dixon. We will be happy to volunteer an hour to get to know you and to explore with you what a partnership with our team might look like. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Several years ago I began paying close attention to the places where expectations of the nonprofit leader were evolving from an internally-focused leader whose expertise closely aligned with the organization’s program and services, to an externally-focused leader whose expertise aligned with leading a complex organization reliant on the support of a diverse constituency. I’ve had the greatest opportunities to make the most sense of this while consulting with boards that expected their senior leaders to assume the posture of what I routinely refer to as the Fundraising CEO. Much of my conversation today with Bradley on The Fundraising Talent Podcast is reminiscent of conversations that I’ve had with board members, CEO’s, and their teams about what it means to have a Fundraising CEO at the helm. It’s not a role for everyone, and not every organization is ready for it. Leveraging the strengths of a Fundraising CEO isn’t about fundraising, per se. It has a lot more to do with organizational design, professional development, and distributed leadership. As a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of a growing nonprofit organization, Bradley has had to think a lot about the role he plays and the expectations he has for those with whom he surrounds himself. In this role, he has thought a lot about how to design the organization in a way that allows him to develop meaningful relationships with donors who can be counted on for sustainable support. Bradley explained that much of it comes down to knowing what everyone’s superpowers are and then confidently delegating responsibilities accordingly.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.If your organization wants to make sense of raising extraordinary levels of support by way of meaningful relationships and higher expectations, our team at Responsive would welcome the opportunity to help you do that. If you’re interested in learning more, email me and/or our managing partner, Michael Dixon. We will be happy to volunteer an hour to get to know you and to explore with you what a partnership with our team might look like. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

A couple of weeks ago my friend Jim Langley managed to stir up a lot of conversation with his suggestion that the traditional approach to a capital campaign was ill-suited to the times. Jim likened the approach to the 1970 Oldsmobile 442, the legacy of which I discovered, after conferring with my dad, can be a rather controversial topic. Some suggest that the 442 is one of the worst cars on the planet; while others insist that it’s always gotten a bad rap and that, by comparison to other muscle cars, it deserves more credit. According to Jim’s argument, the 442 was a beautiful thing in its day; however, he insists that any rational person today would consider it overbuilt, highly inefficient, and clunky looking. My dad concurred that the 442 was high maintenance, but remarked that, despite that, it was certainly a fun ride - perhaps all that would be needed to “seal the deal” with particular major donors. He then managed to find a commercial which asked, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a 442?”Jim joins us on the podcast today along with our friend Bruce Flessner to further explore the comparison. Jim and Bruce, go head to head on whether the traditional campaign approach is out of date and in need of a replacement or, as some have said about the 442, is actually under-appreciated and worthy of more credit than its generally given. Both of my guests today have plenty of history with the traditional campaign: before launching his firm, Jim spent several decades carrying out capital campaigns in Higher Ed; and Bruce, who founded and led BWF, has spent most of his career assisting clients in Higher Ed and Healthcare to build successful advancement programs.Before we began our discussion, I shared with Bruce and Jim, I have been especially grateful for their willingness to engage with me, hearing out my criticisms of contemporary practices and never allowing our differences of opinion to get in the way of our professional camaraderie. What I have discovered about both of them is that, like myself, fundraising has always been more than a job; it’s a vocation and calling that warrants the sort of thoughtful and reflective debate that we enjoyed today.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.If your organization wants to make sense of raising extraordinary levels of support by way of meaningful relationships and higher expectations, our team at Responsive would welcome the opportunity to help you do that. If you’re interested in learning more, email me and/or our managing partner, Michael Dixon. We will be happy to volunteer an hour to get to know you and to explore with you what a partnership with our team might look like. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Like many fundraisers, Kathryn describes her entrance into the profession as a search for meaningful work. For the most part, what she found was that facilitating the exchange of charitable gifts has been a rewarding experience and that it has afforded an opportunity to form valuable relationships with her colleagues. However, she also discovered that, at times, the job was lonely, stressful, and wrought with unreasonable expectations. She has dealt with demanding and creepy donors as well as bosses who lacked training and really didn’t know what they were doing; her last supervisor was a vicious bully. As she has shared these experiences with others, she has discovered that they are far more common than they should be.Kathryn wants to know whether fundraisers are happy in their jobs and, if not, whether bullying is a factor in why they are unhappy. As a professor of practice at the John Martinson Honors College at Purdue University, Kathryn’s research isn’t aimed at just asking whether bullying is happening and to what extent; Kathryn wants to understand how bullying behavior manifests itself in the context of a fundraising environment. For example, are fundraisers going out in the field desiring genuine and meaningful relationships only to dreadfully fear returning to the office if they arrive without a check in hand?As I shared with Kathryn, I have long been of the opinion that the dark side of the predictive tools we employ will become increasingly obvious as research like this is undertaken. I would insist that, in the next decade, studies like Kathryn’s are going to demonstrate that our wholesale embrace of tactics borrowed from the marketplace and designed to predict and control human behavior are going to backfire and that the evidence is going to be easy to find in this kind of research. It is my hope that Kathryn’s findings are the sort that allow us to clearly understand where our tactics cross the line and where we’re betraying the spirit of a gift. If you’d like to anonymously participate in this study, click here.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Andrew has committed himself to getting direct mail right for a long time. For as long as I have known him, I have watched as he processes what’s going on in the world and what’s being said or discovered and then applies it to his craft. Most recently, Andrew has engaged in a stream of honest conversations with the team at Dickerson, Bakker & Associates and he’s my guest today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast to talk about these conversations. In short, Andrew isn’t giving up on direct mail; he does, however, want us to admit where it notoriously lets us down and to revisit the underlying assumptions that have ensured its privileged role in our fundraising strategies for decades.Today’s conversation isn’t the stereotypical “is direct mail dead or alive?” conversation. What Andrew wants those who are always in direct mail’s corner to admit is that, if we don’t address some of its weaknesses - those we have known were there all along, we’re going to find ourselves in a lot of trouble very soon. Andrew wants direct mail’s strongest advocates to recognize that it’s time for some changes. To remain a viable contributor, direct mail has to evolve. After reminding us of some of its flaws and shortcomings as well as one of its dirty little secrets, Andrew wants us all paying attention to what may be the most consequential of realties facing direct mail: the fact that the middle class is shrinking. According to Pew Research, in 1970 middle-income households accounted for 62% of aggregate income, a share that fell to 42% in 2020. Meanwhile, the share of aggregate income accounted for by upper-income households has increased steadily, from 29% in 1970 to 50% in 2020.Today’s conversation confronts the fact that whether direct mail works doesn’t matter all that much when the population of donors it was originally intended for has shrunk dramatically over the last half century. And while direct mail’s intended audience continues to shrink, those for whom it wasn’t are now holding onto the most cash. Either way you look at it, like so many things that have to adapt over time, if direct mail is going to continue to play a meaningful role, it’s going to have to evolve quickly.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

For some time now, I have been contemplating what early twentieth-century activist and reformer Jane Addams would have to say to those of us who are asking tough questions about philanthropy. In short, I believe she would ask whether our work reflects a commitment to strengthening democracy, creating proximity among the haves and the have nots, and exemplifying what it means to be a citizen rather than a mere consumer. While I believe Addams would sympathize with many of the critiques that are being thrown at philanthropy today; I also believe she would encourage us all to be hyper-diligent in understanding what appropriate expectations we should have of it.For those who are not familiar with Jane Addams and her views on philanthropy, she was the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, co-founder of the ACLU, and co-founder of Chicago's Hull House. Addams’ views on philanthropy afford us a contrast to Andrew Carnegie’s “responsibilities of wealth” and the notion that giving away money is hard work. Author Louise Knight explains that Addams was far more concerned about the “responsibilities of being human” and believed philanthropy should create space for interacting directly, making sense of each other’s burdens, and working together to address social issues.Before the holidays, I had the pleasure of recording today’s podcast conversation with Paul Pribbenow, a veteran fundraiser, the president at Augsburg University, and a scholar of Addams’ work. During his time as Augsburg‘s president, Paul has been recognized for the transformation of a culture of philanthropy that hinges on deficit-thinking and focuses on what is lacking, to an asset-based perspective that emphasizes Augsburg’s high aspirations and unique strengths. In 2019, Paul was named Outstanding Fundraising Professional by The Association of Fundraising Professionals: the highest honor that AFP bestows to its members. In addition to numerous articles on philanthropy, ethics, and not-for-profit management, Paul is perhaps most admired for his bimonthly email newsletter titled, “Notes for the Reflective Practitioner.”Prior to accepting his post at Augsburg University, Paul served as president of Rockford University where Jane Addams graduated in 1882. Building on her legacy, Paul created The Jane Addams Center for Civic Engagement and leveraged Addams story to recruit students and interest them in community service. As Paul writes, Addams believed that philanthropy, when properly understood, was the work of citizenship. As he desires for his students and faculty, Paul wants all of us to see and understand philanthropy as Addams did: a “common work” that belongs to all citizens.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I’m headed to Omaha later this week, and one of the first things I’m going to find is a great Reuben sandwich. As the origin story goes, while playing cards with “the committee” at the at the Blackstone Hotel, Reuben Kulakofsky, a local grocer, ordered the now famous corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich. Impressed with this original idea, the hotel owner made the sandwich a permanent fixture on his menu. While Kenley, my guest today on the podcast, evidently isn’t a big a fan, I rarely pass up the chance to have a good Rueben. Kenley is a member of the line-up for our Roadshow stop later this week in Omaha where he will be sharing his thoughts about how nonprofit leaders keep their heads on straight when it comes to the technology. In short, Kenley wants to impress upon us that perhaps our expectations are too high and, as one of my previous guest recently suggested, that we have put far too much faith in the CRM-centric approach to fundraising.Kenley assures us that he is a strong advocate for many of these platforms however he wants more nonprofit leaders to understand that our sector’s software applications and database management systems will not solve our fundraising issues. He points out that fundraisers are bombarded with messages that imply technology has capabilities it doesn’t actually have. Kenley insists that a lot the noise that tech companies create gets in the way of fundraisers being able to make sense of what will really ensure their success. Today’s conversation, like several others in recent weeks, reminds me of the assertion that Peter Thiel makes in his book Zero to One: we have to get better at discerning between those platforms designed to be competitive with versus complementary to our human endeavors. As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.The first stop of the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow for 2023 will be later this week in Omaha in partnership with the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands. If you’d like to register for this event, just visit their website at here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

As we have resumed our roadshows, we have found that shining a spotlight on local leaders greatly enhances the learning experiences for our participants. My guest today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast is Brandi Holys, Vice President of Advancement at Gross Catholic High School, and a member of the line-up for our Roadshow stop in Omaha next week. In partnership with The Nonprofit Association of the Midlands, Brandi, Kenley Sturdivant-Wilson, and Kevin Mahler have partnered with Responsive to ensure a high-energy, thought-provoking series of conversations about what it means to build and sustain meaningful relationships with donors in the twenty-first century.Brandi is the Vice President of Advancement at Gross Catholic High School and the host of Philanthropy is NOT a Bake Sale Podcast. Brandi is a big believer in the fact that it’s the transformative power of philanthropy combined with genuine and meaningful relationships that allows our sector to solve complex problems. What I most appreciated about today’s conversation with Brandi was that she wants more of us conjuring up the courage to experiment with new and ground breaking ideas when it comes to our fundraising efforts. Brandi insists that we cannot continue to do the same things that we always have. Brandi and I pondered just how much of what we were doing pre-pandemic was showing signs of wear and that now we are taking advantage of the time and space to make some big and bold changes for the better.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.The first stop of the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow for 2023 will be in Omaha, Nebraska on Friday, March 3rd in partnership with the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands. If you’d like to register for this event, just visit their website at here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Lauren wants to remind us that “regrets don’t really solve problems, but taking action will”; and that “it’s never too late to try.” She wants to encourage us to start being more intentional about who and where we want to be in the world and to confidently take the necessary steps towards moving in that direction. Dissatisfied with where they found themselves, Lauren and her family recently made the decision to relocate to Charlotte, NC, a place that aligned with particular interests and hobbies, afforded a more progressive political scene, and was more responsive to the priorities of young Black professionals.Coincidentally, today’s podcast conversation with Lauren is in many ways a continuation of the one we enjoyed with Nancy last week. These two conversations, both centered on intentionality, beg the question of just how many of us are finding ways to be more deliberate about the decisions we make. Perhaps The Great Recession and experiences like the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and recent elections have shaken us up, compelling us to evaluate what matters most to us and where we want to prioritize our time, energy, and resources.That said, to make these observations about our own experiences while failing to consider the experiences of those on the other side of a charitable gift exchange is to have a bad read on the moment in time in which we are collectively living. Today’s conversation with Lauren challenges us to ask ourselves what we are doing to ensure that our donors, who are being more intentional, selective, and discerning about the choices they make, are making the decision to support our organizations over all the others that are packed into their mailboxes and inboxes.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.ARCHITECT Brand + Design Collective is a strategy development firm focused on community-centered and diverse philanthropy, leveraging the best practices in storytelling, strategic marketing and inclusive fundraising strategies. To learn more, visit www.architectyourambition.com to learn more The first stop for 2023 on the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow will be in Omaha, Nebraska on Friday, March 3rd in partnership with the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands. If you’d like to register for this event, just visit their website at here.We’re trying something new. The Butterfly Effect, our new publication on Substack, is where we make sense of the ideas and opinions that inform our consulting practices at Responsive Fundraising. Every week we will guarantee for our subscribers a thoughtful, long form article that will challenge how we think about contemporary fundraising practices. We would be delighted if you would subscribe.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

As we have resumed our roadshows, we have found that shining a spotlight on local leaders greatly enhances the learning experiences for our participants. My guest today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast is Nancy Williams, Founder and CEO of No Empty Pots, and a member of the line-up for our Roadshow stop in Omaha next month. In partnership with The Nonprofit Association of the Midlands, Nancy, Brandi Holys, Kenley Sturdivant-Wilson, and Kevin Mahler have partnered with Responsive to ensure a high-energy, thought-provoking series of conversations about what it means to build and sustain meaningful relationships with donors in the twenty-first century.The mission of No More Empty Pots is to connect individuals and groups to improve self-sufficiency, regional food security, and economic resilience in urban and rural communities through advocacy and action. What I most appreciated about today’s conversation was that Nancy was so clearly able to translate the Indigenous circular wisdom that informs their efforts at No More Empty Pots to our work as fundraising professionals. Nancy challenged us to see the interdependency that exists within all human systems and to appreciate the level of intentionality that we all want to bring to our most important decisions.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.The first stop for 2023 will be in Omaha, Nebraska on Friday, March 3rd in partnership with the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands. If you’d like to register for this event, just visit their website at here.We’re trying something new. The Butterfly Effect, our new publication on Substack, is where we make sense of the ideas and opinions that inform our consulting practices at Responsive Fundraising. Every week we will guarantee for our subscribers a thoughtful, long form article that will challenge how we think about contemporary fundraising practices. We would be delighted if you would subscribe.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

For those of us who want to overhaul charitable giving and reengineer the status quo, Sara’s TedTalk offers a glimpse of what we need to do. Sara wants us all to make sense of the power of collective giving. Sara is the founding CEO of Philanthropy Together, a growing movement of people-powered philanthropy aimed at resourcing grassroots nonprofits, shifting power dynamics, and promoting widespread philanthropy. In her Ted Talk, Sara describes the four components of a thriving giving circle: belonging, discourse, trust, and to act. Sara wants us to see that collective giving affords us an opportunity to practice democracy in a way that our individual giving habits can’t. The decision-making process allows us to get outside of our own heads and to hear another person’s perspective, perhaps someone with whom we don’t have much in common. As we emerge from the recent pandemic, Sara wants us all to realize that we are hungry to find meaning in groups and understand that there is nothing better than coming together to deliberate and choose to support causes that we collectively believe in. As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.We’re trying something new. The Butterfly Effect, our new publication on Substack, is where we make sense of the ideas and opinions that inform our consulting practices at Responsive Fundraising. Every week we will guarantee for our subscribers a thoughtful, long form article that will challenge how we think about contemporary fundraising practices. We would be delighted if you would subscribe.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Some of us are having a hard time making sense of why, in the last two decades, nonprofits have lost the support of twenty-million donors; and we don’t understand the appeal of donor advised funds, giving circles, and direct giving as alternatives to the traditional pathways that our charities create. I would insist that these and other trends are the effects of a mischaracterization of the donor and their growing intolerance for a role that they never agreed to play. Where did the idea that our donors should behave like passive, predictable consumers come from?In making sense of how this mischaracterization of the donor evolved, I have found Jon Alexander’s, Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us, especially helpful. Jon’s book gives us a critical lens through which to understand why our organizations have become what Robert Putnam called, “mailing list organizations” and, as one of my guests has described, why our sector has become so CRM-centric. Jon’s book affords us a useful framework for what I believe will need to change in order for our professional community to actually achieve many of the higher aspirations that have been called for recently. Calling for change, without demonstrating a willingness to change the nature of our relationships, is just blowing smoke.Jon’s book challenges us to recognize that our identities as consumers have been failing us for quite some time, and the fundraising community is no exception to these disappointments. Jon explains, “…the Consumer Story is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions, and the Citizen Story is emerging. People are dissatisfied with being mere Consumers, yearn for deeper agency even though we lack the words to express it, and have an innate if imprecise sense that authentic participation holds the key to a brighter future.”For those who want to make sense of the mischaracterization that we have assigned our donors and how its effects have become so pervasive and detrimental to our efforts, today’s podcast conversation is a great place to start. In our conversation, Jon helps us see how the allure of Effective Altruism, the use of the hero story, and the inclination to create menus are all indicators that we’re collectively stuck in the consumer story. As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.We’re trying something new. The Butterfly Effect, our new publication on Substack, is where we make sense of the ideas and opinions that inform our consulting practices at Responsive Fundraising. Every week we will guarantee for our subscribers a thoughtful, long form article that will challenge how we think about contemporary fundraising practices. We would be delighted if you would subscribe.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

David and Sam are both members of The Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s Supporter Experience Committee. This network of fundraisers is dedicated to identifying best practices and providing thought leadership aimed at ensuring quality supporter experiences. In today’s podcast conversation, David and Sam challenge us to ask whether less homogenous and less industrialist fundraising practices might improve the fundraising experience for those on both sides of the exchange. Many of David and Sam’s observations beg the question of why so many charities remain content to squeeze enormous populations of donors into a system that assumes that everyone shares the same motivations for giving.   Throughout our conversation, David and Sam repeatedly brought us back to the opportunity they see for sector leaders willing to make changes that might turn around some of the troubling trends and remedy some of the mistakes we make over and over again. We explored some of the insights that these leaders might glean from organizations like BLM and Extinction Rebellion as well as the response to the conflict in Ukraine and the University of Tennessee’s crowdfunding campaign for new goalposts.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.———————————————————————We’re trying something new. The Butterfly Effect, our new publication on Substack, is where we make sense of the ideas and opinions that inform our consulting practices at Responsive Fundraising. Every week we will guarantee for our subscribers a thoughtful, long form article that will challenge how we think about contemporary fundraising practices. We would be delighted if you would subscribe.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Alex isn’t kidding when he says it seems like The Chronicle of Philanthropy has been retelling the same story about disillusioned fundraisers for a long time. Those of us who have been around for a while are well aware of the fact that, at any given time, at least half of the fundraisers out there are looking for another job and that very few boards and bosses have come to a consensus about how fundraising really works. As of late this familiar story has zeroed in on how poorly prepared some employers are with making hiring decisions and how often they miss opportunities by relying on an arduous interview process.Alex believes hiring managers need a wake up call; and, on the flip side, he insists that candidates need to know how to see the red flags that distinguish between an job where you’re being set up to fail rather than given an opportunity to thrive. For example, Alex wants fundraisers to listen more closely to whether an employer characterizes the work as exchanging gifts with those who share a genuine and meaningful relationship with our organization; or does the employer believe that the donor is merely a passive consumer and an opportunity to close a quick deal. I was grateful to hear that Alex had taken my recent recommendation to read Benjamin Barber’s Consumed which likens our consumer society to that of a child whose impulsive behavior prevents them from achieving their full potential. As I have said many times before, this is where I believe fundraising finds itself today: in the midst of its messy adolescence and unable to discern between what’s really working in its favor versus getting in its way. I am confident that as we develop a collective willingness to wrestle with tough questions of the sort that Alex and I did today, and as donors are afforded opportunities to play active, citizen-like roles with the organizations they support, our sector and society as a whole will reap the benefits that accompany mature, sustainable relationships.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.———————————————————————We’re trying something new. The Butterfly Effect, our new publication on Substack, is where we make sense of the ideas and opinions that inform our consulting practices at Responsive Fundraising. Every week we will guarantee for our subscribers a thoughtful, long form article that will challenge how we think about contemporary fundraising practices. We would be delighted if you would subscribe.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Stuart wants us to carefully think about whether we’re designing resilience into our organizations and, if not, ask ourselves if difficult and uncertain times are really to blame for some of our financial misfortunes. I have been an admirer of Stuart’s work for quite some time. His research begs the question of whether our scholars have done more harm than good by borrowing as many theories as they have from the marketplace. Stuart’s “Nonprofit First” thinking insists that we should construct theory from what has emerged within our sector rather than from somewhere else. During today’s conversation, Stuart and I unraveled how nonprofit organizations often come about with the help of government subsidies only to later become increasingly dependent on charitable giving. As the government fades, many nonprofit leaders implicitly assume the donor will step up to the plate and play their role similar to how the government did. What these leaders miss is that these are fundamentally different types of relationships, distinct types of exchanges, all functioning in accordance with completely different playbooks. Stuart would insist that designing for resilience starts with knowing how to make these kinds of distinctions.Looking ahead, we have quite a line-up of conversations set for January centered around the notion of citizenship and what it looks like when our donors insist on something more than the passive, consumer-like role to which our organizations have grown accustomed. If you would like to be a guest on The Fundraising Talent Podcast in 2023, email me anytime; our listeners would be delighted to hear your big ideas and bold opinions.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I was grateful to Alex, co-founder of The Giving Block, for ensuring that we add a timely conversation about the FTX-Bankman Fried collapse to The Fundraising Talent Podcast’s library of conversations. Shortly after this story started making headlines, I appreciated seeing that Alex and Pat offered their take on the situation and assured nonprofit leaders that the effect of this fiasco would be minimal for most charities and their crypto-minded donors. This was perhaps welcome news for those who, like myself, are only beginners at making sense of how cryptocurrency fits in our fundraising efforts. What effect all this will have on effective altruism, Bankman-Fried’s ideological framework of choice, is yet to be seen. Alex wants us to remind ourselves that the failure of an individual or an entity is not the failure of entire industry. Alex explained that FTX played a very small role in Crypto Philanthropy and he insisted that this will not slow down the growth of this industry. Alex explained that twice as many nonprofit organizations are accepting cryptocurrency donations through their platform than were a year ago, and every month the team at The Giving Block help hundreds of charities design and launch their crypto-philanthropy programs.Listeners, please forgive the echo for about the first 7 minutes. We were able to clean that up so as to ensure a painless listen thereafter. As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

As a leader in Seattle’s arts community and a college professor, Jackson is just getting started. Southern Theatre magazine has recently named Jackson among a group of rising leaders who are paving the way for the future of fundraising. What I most appreciated about today’s conversation was that, while Jackson is explicit in his desire to do away with fundraising’s narrow focus on the top three percent, he’s evidently chosen not to be envious and make wealth-bashing part of his repertoire. Jackson isn’t typecasting anyone.In today’s conversation, Jackson challenges fundraisers to check themselves before they set out to raise money. He wants fundraisers to think carefully about their own relationship with money and wealth and to examine how they go about engaging with and soliciting the support of their donors. Jackson wants us to ask ourselves whether we’re creating opportunities for our donors to be better people and whether we’re creating experiences aimed at creating more than mere transactions. Like so many of my guests in the last couple of years, Jackson has high aspirations and wants to see qualitative improvements in how we carry out our work.Much of our conversation was about how fundraisers can best steward relationships with their donors. For example, Jackson described the opportunity that nonprofits have to curate meaningful experiences for those who began their life with very little and then, late in life, found themselves with more than they could have ever imagined. Jackson wants us to envision our organizations not only as places for raising awareness and providing services but also as places for demonstrating solidarity and expressing gratitude.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Today’s podcast conversation offers a tough pill that I suspect some of us aren’t willing to swallow. Jim wants us to wrestle with the question of why today’s nonprofits are afraid of their own obsolescence. Instead of planning to eventually close, Jim wants to know why, for all intents and purposes, our organizations collectively make up what has become a growth industry. Are we willing to admit to ourselves that raising money for problems that never get solved is big business? Jim’s tough pill reminds me of the “Shirky Principle” which says that institutions will preserve a problem to which they are the solution. When we think about our fundraising efforts, have our donors become co-conspirators in ignoring root problems and not telling the truth? Are we placating our donors with easy-to-fund problems with which we believe they will be more comfortable and of which they can easily make sense? Jim wants to us to find the courage to solicit support for real solutions that are complex, difficult to understand, and might even make us all feel uncomfortable.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation today with Jillian was a great reminder to me of what I have always believed to be one of the most meaningful aspects of nonprofit work: the opportunity to create community around common struggles. For most of our lives, Jillian and I have shared a common obstacle that can interrupt our daily lives in life-threatening ways. 99% of the time, our seizure disorders are completely manageable, and we can exist in the world just like other able-bodied citizens. Unfortunately, in a matter of seconds and without warning, our lives and the lives of anyone in our care can be at great risk. Discovering that we shared this common thread in our stories is what initiated today’s podcast conversation.Jillian insists that the best fundraisers are always curious, authentic, and able to bring their whole selves to their work. This is what Jillian demonstrated today; she showed up, shared a part of her story that no one would be able to make sense of without the benefit of a conversation like this one, and she came to be curious and share an interest in learning about the stories of other colleagues who share similar experiences. The question Jillian raised was how unseen diversity impacts a fundraisers journey. And furthermore, how can our professional community demonstrate a commitment to listening to and understanding the aspects of each other’s story that exist below the surface?As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation today with Adam was both timely and inspiring. Adam wants us to see how the logic of the gift affords a more holistic, long-term, and collaborative perspective where the focus can be on the quality of relationships rather than making comparisons of one’s contribution to another. Adam explained how he has produced programming at Jewish Studio Project that, rather than using the traditional fee-for-service approach, relies on the gift economy. He explained that everyone contributes what they can and recognizes that they are there to give just as much as they are there to receive.With this logic in mind, Adam shared how it has informed their approach to Giving Tuesday. Rather than just ensuring that as many gifts as possible flow in their direction, they have sought out opportunities to model gratitude and extend generosity to other organizations. For this year’s Giving Tuesday campaign, the Jewish Studio Project is encouraging their community to give to Queer Asterisk, a Colorado-based organization that is providing counseling services to those who have been effected by the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Stephanie Schwartz is the Founder and CEO of Little Bean Group, a fundraising consultancy in Washington, DC. Stephanie loves to work with leaders who want to dream big and who recognize that fundraising is often the path by which their dreams come to fruition. Stephanie affords her clients the benefit of extensive experience in both education and advocacy. In today’s conversation, Stephanie challenges us to change our expectations of board members and not necessarily, as I often say, “letting them off the hook” but thinking strategically about where they can most effectively contribute to the overall fundraising effort.Stephanie and I agreed that today’s nonprofit leaders are wise to distinguish between the ways and means that a fundraiser can shine versus where board members have similar opportunities. Stephanie wants us to grasp that, for the majority of our board members, this means finding ways to be engaged in fundraising that don’t necessitate an ask. It also means abandoning the myriad of overly prescriptive responsibilities that we often assign them. Experience has taught many of us that these formulas often translate into less than desirable experiences for our board members and a lot of frustration and disappointment for ourselves.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

This is the second in a two-part conversation with the editors of Collecting Courage: Joy, Pain, Freedom, Love which has been described as “an honest, raw account” of the experiences of 14 Black charity leaders and fundraisers in North America. In response to the project’s success, the editors are convening readers who want to continue on the journey towards racial reconciliation and collective healing in our sector.Nneka, Nicole, and Camila recently joined me to discuss both their book and The Path to Action Conference later this month. In this segment, Camila helps us understand the myriad of obstacles that she encountered early in her career despite having readied herself as well as she did. Camila explains how what she accomplished was “diminished, disregarded or discarded” by a sector that she genuinely wanted to be believe in and to which she wanted to remain committed.If these conversations stirred you as they have me, I would encourage you to accept the invitation that has been extended to us; for those who want to be co-conspirators in the fight for racial justice in our sector, for those who want to be equipped with the knowledge and tools that are required, and for those who want to make sense of their roles and responsibilities in ensuring greater freedom for everyone, register here. As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

This is the first in a two-part conversation with the editors of Collecting Courage: Joy, Pain, Freedom, Love which has been described as “an honest, raw account” of the experiences of 14 Black charity leaders and fundraisers in North America. In response to the project’s success, the editors are convening readers who want to continue on the journey towards racial reconciliation and collective healing in our sector.Nneka, Nicole, and Camila joined me to discuss both their book and The Path to Action Conference later this month. Nicole begins by helping us see in between the lines of her poetry and then challenges us to see the “jacket” - a metaphor for what our brown and black colleagues are expected to conform to in our sector. I can recall previous guests who have similarly described this jacket that many of us either remain unaware of or simply refuse to see. If this conversation stirs you, I would encourage you to accept the invitation that has been extended to us; for those who want to be co-conspirators in the fight for racial justice in our sector, for those who want to be equipped with the knowledge and tools that are required, and for those who want to make sense of their roles and responsibilities in ensuring greater freedom for everyone, register for the conference here. As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Heather wants charities to recognize that they may be vastly underestimating the value they bring to their corporate sponsors and that, in doing so, they may prohibit themselves from building mutually beneficial relationships that can bring far more value than simply financial support. Heather explains that we’re beyond the era of old-school corporate giving where the charity delivers on the good and the corporate sponsor just delivers on a check. Heather is the founder and president of The boutique fundraising consultancy, BridgeRaise, which helps nonprofits take their corporate giving efforts to a new level starting with aligning everyone’s values. Heather wants nonprofit leaders to see that they are bringing more to the table and have the opportunity to welcome their corporate sponsors into an active, co-creative type of relationship. The type of relationship Heather describes allows leaders to do away with the deficit-thinking that always postures the charity with their hands out, looking for a hero to rescue them. Rather than partnering with corporations who select their partners like members of a “flavor of the month club,” Heather wants charity leaders to seek out purpose-led corporations that can be counted on for sustainable, meaningful relationships that translate into the most signicant levels of support.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Greg kicked off today’s conversation with the suggestion that there is going to be an increasing divide between those shops whose fundraising efforts can thrive and those whose cannot. Greg believes a lot of this will be evident in the success or lack thereof in organizations’ planned giving efforts. While Greg insists these efforts don’t have to be especially complicated, our organizations will have to match our desire for these more significant gifts with the wherewithal to most effectively and appropriately negotiate, receive, and acknowledge them. Our team at Responsive appreciates that Greg is among our consulting colleagues who are allowing our Three Lanes Theory to inform some of his thinking on this.During the second half of today’s conversation, it took an especially thought provoking turn when we posed the question of whether having higher expectations of the relationship rather than of the individuals involved in the exchange translates into greater success in planned giving. I was looking to connect Greg’s thoughts with that of author Aaron Dignan who insists that in the future we’re all going to have to be increasingly “complexity conscious”. This way of thinking recognizes that the most meaningful outcomes in a complex adaptive system, whatever they may be, emerge from the interactions in between us rather than from the behavior of any individual actor. As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

How does the assumption that our donors are intentionally hoarding wealth in a donor-advised fund help any of us accomplish our goals? And, perhaps more importantly, how does such negative spin help anyone make sense of why these tools have become so popular in the last several decades? While the critics want us to focus on changing legislation and trying to coerce generosity with additional rules and regulations, I say we ought to learn how to have more meaningful relationships with our donors. Will changing the rules necessarily improve our bottom-line or just make our jobs even harder than they already are?My conversation today with Lisa and Stephen centered around what Princeton sociologist Viviana Zelizer in her book, The Social Meaning of Money, refers to as earmarking. Zelizer explains that human beings have always made a habit of earmarking monies that align with particular types of relationships. I asked Lisa and Stephen to wrestle with whether giving our donors the benefit of the doubt and applying Zelizer’s logic might help some of us see the use of donor-advised funds through a more optimistic lens. What Lisa and Stephen see is not an affluent donor who wants to hoard money. Rather, they see a donor who is increasingly deliberate and purposeful and whose giving is directed towards organizations that take the donor’s decision-making process as seriously as they do.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for their continued support of The Fundraising Talent Podcast.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Cathy is the development lead at Bloomberg Philanthropies. Bloomberg Philanthropies works to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people by focusing on five key areas: the arts, education, the environment, government innovation, and public health. Encompassing all of Mike Bloomberg’s giving, Bloomberg Philanthropies includes his foundation and corporate and personal philanthropy as well as Bloomberg Associates, a pro bono consultancy that works with mayors in cities around the world.During our conversation today, Cathy encourages us to embrace the obvious and, as a mentor once told her, “be open to people who sees things that you don’t, but should.” Cathy wants to encourage us to approach things with a conversational, exploratory, “how could we make sense of this differently” attitude. She encourages us to stop looking for moonshots and begin to embrace the obvious - what’s in arms-reach, accessible, and available to us. To this point, Cathy concludes with an example from a friend at the Harlem Children’s Zone who, during the pandemic, came to a realization of just how obvious the solutions really were.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for their continued support of The Fundraising Talent Podcast.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Conversations of this sort have me convinced that the next generation of non-profiteers will think very carefully about whether to embrace the twentieth-century, consumer-oriented approach to fundraising to which many of us still remain very loyal. Dion has only been at this for a couple of years and has quickly figured out that contemporary fundraising has a tendency to focus on the short term, commodify the stories of those being served, and elevate the donors like kings and queens rather than as fellow citizens who share in a commitment to the same cause. Dion is the founder of Dion's Chicago Dream, a non-profit feeding those in neighborhoods without access to fresh food and produce. Food deserts, areas in which it is difficult to find affordable and healthy foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, affect every part of the city, with a larger presence in the South and West sides of Chicago. Dion’s initiative has expanded to assist residents in need in every Chicago neighborhood through the power of fresh, healthy food.Before we wrapped up our conversation today, Dion shared his thoughts about how leaders should be interacting with funders. Dion explained that we shouldn’t be afraid to correct flawed assumptions nor should we allow inherent power dynamics to corrupt the relationship. Dion’s explanation reminded me of Jane Addam’s work at Hull House just over a century ago. In the same struggling Chicago neighborhoods, I suspect Addams would have characterized her work in much the same way that Dion did today - “We’re doing philanthropy differently.”As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Today’s podcast conversation with Ray Gary was fantastic. Why? Because Ray evidently doesn’t relate to the world like a technocrat who is convinced tech will save the planet. Ray certainly understands the role technology can and should play; however, he also understands that technology can’t be expected to do all the heavy lifting. Ray wants to see generosity become a habit and lifestyle rather than a one-off transactional experience that we’re often counting on technology to ensure happens. As the founder and CEO of IDonate, Ray believes that if applied correctly technology can amplify the good that the sector is already doing.Our conversation today went in all sorts of directions - everywhere from why the nonprofit sector is so CRM centric to what Peloton can teach us about being a part of a dynamic community. Ray describes Peloton as an example of how an organization can transform a product or service into way of life. Ray explains that what makes Peloton such a remarkable concept is much less about the exercise bike and a lot about the community of Peloton users. Our conversation about the popularity of Peloton begs the question of how charitable organizations might create more community-centered experiences that allow their donors to form meaningful relationships with others who share a commitment to the same cause.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My guest today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast is Paulina Artieda, executive director for The New Philanthropists, an organization that works to create more racially diverse and inclusive nonprofit boards in Austin. Their mission is to build a pipeline to leadership for people of color; cultivate diversity, equity, and inclusion among mainstream nonprofit boards; and enable nonprofits to be more effective stewards of public trust and to produce better outcomes for the people they serve. My conversation today with Paulina begs the question of whether our board recruitment strategies align with our DEI aspirations.As Paulina and I got warmed up, we started wrestling with some of the questions boards should be asking themselves. Is it time to abandon any semblance of “give, get or get off,” the privilege of board members “buying” their way into their seats, or the habit of recruiting individuals who sit on boards everywhere else? What Paulina and her team want us to make sense of is that a board member is more than their financial gift, that boards have to ready themselves for cultural shifts, and that it all begins with cultivating genuine relationships. What I most appreciated about this conversation was how often we reminded ourselves that recruitment to any role, be it board members, major donors, or volunteers, needs to begin with our genuine desire to be in relationship those who are different from ourselves.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Madge challenged us this morning by asking what would it look like if more nonprofits accurately reflected the communities their organizations served. This is one of the conversations I have with my students every spring, and my career has afforded me opportunities to see where we’re getting this right and wrong. How do we ensure that our boards and bosses have a grasp of who they are serving and why? As Madge explained, studies have shown that less than 20% of nonprofits are led by people of color while the vast majority of our nonprofits serve communities of color. Much of our conversation today was about making sense of how to change this reality. Madge is the CEO at Mission Capital, a capacity building organization in Austin, that has been serving the region’s nonprofits for over 20 years. As Madge shared with me, Mission Capital’s explicit goals are three-fold: to close the racial leadership gap, to increase organizational resilience and sustainability, and to expand collaborative networks. What I most appreciated about our conversation today was how Madge described the organization as a place where the diversity of our sector can show up, where messiness is expected to happen, and where everyone leaves stronger by having participated in the conversation. The team at Mission Capital are individuals who are passionate about serving their community. They envision a Central Texas where leaders feel empowered to elevate their voices and where organizations are equipped to fulfill their missions. Our team at Responsive is delighted to be partnered with Madge and her team at Mission Capital as they host the first stop on our roadshow next week in Austin. If you’re interested in attending, sign up via our website here.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

One of our goals with our roadshow is to shine a spotlight on highly capable individuals who are helping their local nonprofit community to thrive. One such individual is Cat, founder of the Giant Squid Group, who I’m delighted will be a part of the lineup for our upcoming roadshow stop in Austin on September 16th. In our conversation today, Cat and I connected the dots between fundraising’s bad case of shiny new toy syndrome and the realization that a lot of these new toys aren’t actually delivering on their promises. What concerns Cat is the effect that these shiny new toys have on the professional development of young fundraisers and whether these new toys get in the way of learning how fundraising really works. Cat’s critique is similar to that of Lucy Bernholz who describes the effect of the “givingscape” as commodifying giving rather than democratizing it.Today’s conversation has us asking whether making charitable giving fast, easy, and painless is really what we’re after or whether removing all the friction has the unintended consequence of making renewing donor’s support more challenging. As I often say, how we go about soliciting the initial gift will have a bearing on whether we can successfully secure the subsequent gift. If you would like to join Cat, Michelle, and myself in Austin for the first stop on the Resonsive Fudnraisinb Roadshow, we would be delighted to have you join us. To register, visit our website here. As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Earlier this year, Evan wrote an article for Candid’s Philanthropy News Digest entitled “We need a ‘Nonprofit Development Bill of Rights’” wherein he insisted that the time for “us” has arrived. If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s that self-care and psychological safety have moved front and center; and we owe it to ourselves — and our donors — to make sure we take care of ourselves. Evan’s proposed “bill of rights” is not anything most of us would expect for our ourselves and our employers no matter the role in which we happen to be. Since this publication, Evan has had many opportunities to discuss and explore his ideas with friends an colleagues. Unfortunately, what concerns Evan today, less than six months since his article’s publication, is that the window of opportunity for getting some of these things right for our professional community seems to be closing too quickly. While Evan is positive about the progress we have made, he’s concerned that perhaps we’re already evolving back to our pre-2020 organizational behavior. Evan is asking whether we have made as much progress as we think we have.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.To read Evan’s article, “We need a ‘Nonprofit Development Bill of Rights”, visit this website here.    If you’d like to register for one of Responsive Fundraising’s upcoming roadshows, visit their website here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

If there is anything that my twenty-plus years in this space has revealed, it’s that professional associations have a way of getting themselves into a mess of trouble. While I’m sure the reasons for this can simmer up from just about anywhere, I suspect most of the trouble is emerges in between the inclination to create rulebooks for how to most ethically get the job done and the need to ensure that their sponsors are happy enough to underwrite next year’s conference. Recently, after watching yet another group of members unravel their disappointments with conference organizers in the Twitterverse, I began to wonder how long these associations will be able to maintain their role as fundraising’s gate-keepers to professional development and networking.I had a hunch that our friends at FundraisingEverywhere might have some ideas about how traditional associations might keep themselves out of trouble. In 2019, Nikki and Simon founded FundraisingEverywhere in order to answer a similar question; how do we make professional development and networking opportunities more accessible to more fundraisers? Their timing couldn’t have been better; with prohibitive fees increasingly scaring fundraisers away from association membership and insiders increasingly dominating the conversation, Nikki and Simon launched a platform that is now hosting some of fundraising’s most important conversations.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.To learn more about upcoming events at FundraisingEverywhere, visit their website here.    If you’d like to register for one of Responsive Fundraising’s upcoming roadshows, visit their website here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I have often advised employers to bet on time rather than money. More often than not, the opportunities for fundraisers to raise serious money are there; the question is whether we can keep our fundraisers around long enough to prove it. My conversation today with Stephanie echoes this point; in order to get this right we have to think more holistically about the jobs we are creating for fundraisers to fill. As Stephanie explained, it’s going to come down to meaningful work and competitive compensation. In my mind, meaningful work is largely a matter of how long they stay in the role rather than how much money they raise. We have to create environments where fundraisers can thrive. I would insist that too much of the conversation about professional turnover has always been about addressing one side of the time/pay equation while ignoring the other; we’ll pay fundraisers well, but who gives a damn whether they want to stick around. Stephanie and I wrapped up today where I hoped we would, asking whether we can persuade employers to incentivize sticking around rather than raising a lots of cash. The more we make sense of how fundraising really works, the more we discover that money raised is an outcome of longevity in the position. If organizations are stuck in lane one, they’re not experiencing fundraising as meaningful work and there isn’t enough margin for meeting everyone’s expectations.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.If you’d like to register for one of Responsive Fundraising’s upcoming roadshows, visit their website here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

As I shared with Andy today, I recall one of his books being among the first that I read early in my career. Now, more than two decades later, it was a pleasure to find so much common ground in how we think about fundraising. Perhaps what I most appreciated about our conversation was that Andy wants fundraisers to enjoy space where the metrics aren’t the focus and where collecting a check isn’t the only goal. As I have said many times myself, we have to afford the relationship the opportunity to do at least some of the job for us. Andy wants fundraisers and their employers to be more comfortable with ambiguity because our world seems to get more complex and unpredictable by the day; Andy insists that developing a tolerance for ambiguity is a good trait to have. As studies demonstrated decades ago, Andy wants boards and nonprofit leaders to appreciate the fact that muddling through can sometimes be as good an approach as a well-structured and highly detailed strategy.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent. If you’d like to learn more about Responsive Fundraising’s sense-making retreats, email me for more information. If you’d like to learn more about the messy middle, download our free white paper entitled, Making sense of the messy middle.For more information about the upcoming Nonprofit Consulting Conference, visit their website here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Early in my career, I figured out pretty quickly that the fundraising wizards want nothing to do with the messy middle. Instead, half of them decide to become overly-invested in new donor acquisition while the other half try to one-up each other in the billionaire campaign club. In this kind of environment, it’s no wonder everything feels so transactional, donor attrition is what it is, and our fundraisers are fed up. Blame the wizards.Today, I sat down with Laurel and Noah, two members of Responsive’s team who, like myself, have made a lot of sense of why the fundraising community, consultancies in particular, won’t talk about the messy middle. What Laurel and Noah have discovered is that the messy middle is where fundraisers have the opportunity to shine, where their employers make sense of how it all actually works, and where the wizards start to feel like they’re getting in the way.As Laurel and Noah discuss in todays podcast conversation, the messy middle isn’t about the timing of, size of, or who gets credit for a donor’s contribution. The messy middle is where the organization makes an intentional decision to prioritize their relationships ahead of the gift - where the donor becomes a citizen rather than a mere consumer. The messy middle is where, as Laurel describes, the job becomes more than that of being a master technician who runs a “fundraising machine.” As Noah describes it, the messy middle is where those on both sides of the exchange can be known, understood, and listened to as human beings.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 Responsive Fundraising’s sense-making retreats, email me for more information. If you’d like to learn more about the messy middle, reach out to either Laurel or Noah for a conversation, and/or download our free white paper entitled, Making sense of the messy middle. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

What I have found enlightening about my conversations with Michelle is her studies in anthropology and her active involvement in several well-organized discussions aimed at addressing some of our sector’s enduring challenges. What I also find noteworthy is that, while some might like to accuse such discussion groups of over-thinking, the colleagues who are seated at the table with Michelle certainly don’t see it this way. Today’s conversations with Michelle confirms that our sector will never reach higher aspirations without asking some tough questions. When I asked what Michelle believed was the common thread among the conversations she is a part of, she described a heightened awareness that what got us here isn’t going to be adaquate for the road ahead. While fundraisers may have tolerated being part of an intervening subculture in the past, they are now insisting on more active and influential roles. Michelle explains that her peers are well aware of the fact that the status quo is flawed and that the boards and bosses who want to hire them are highly resistant to change. All this means that fundraisers need to be savvier about their job descriptions and a bit more selective about whom they sign on with.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 Responsive Fundraising’s sense-making retreats, email me for more information. If you’d like to learn more about the conversations that Michelle and her colleagues are a part of, visit these websites for more information. Community-Centric Fundraising The Donor Participation ProjectAssociation of Fundraising Professionals - Austin Chapter     This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

As a privileged white guy, these are the types of conversations that keep me on my toes. Today we’re happy to have Noah, a member of our consulting team, co-hosting; which means I have one obligation which fellas like me don’t do very easily - today, my job is to just shut up and listen. Today’s conversation is just a taste of what Noah and Martha will be talking about at #BAMEOnline later this month. Martha and Noah want us to ask ourselves whether our existing tools, those we’re comfortable and familiar with, will allow us to dismantle the injustices many of us are trying to address. In other words, can fundraising professionals let go of their favorite toys?Martha is the founder of #BAMEOnline - the first conference of it’s kind. Martha describes #BAMEOnline as advancing liberation for all people rather than just those of power and privilege. It is a space where Black and POC who have done incredible fundraising can share the keys to their success. Martha also explains that, in addition to creating and strengthening the community, conference organizers don’t shy away from difficult questions that have easily been overlooked and ignored in our sector. Martha insists that if we don’t do the deep work of asking how and for what purposes our existing tools were designed, we’re doomed to commit the same sins we accuse others of.The #BAMEOnline conference is July 28th in partnership with our friends at FundraisingEverywhere. This online event isn’t just for POC; it’s for anyone who wants to better understand how to navigate racism, fundraising and philanthropy. Tickets are pay what you can, which means that it is open to all, regardless of your training budget. All profits will be split between organizations led by POC in the UK.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 Responsive Fundraising’s sense-making retreats, email me for more information. If you’d like to learn more about the  conference, visit the #BAMEOnline website here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I was delighted to have Mazarine as a returning guest on today’s episode of The Fundraising Talent Podcast. Mazarine is the founder of Wild Woman Fundraising and the Nonprofit Consulting Conference. Mazarine also hosts the Asking for More podcast and she is the author of The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising and Get the Job! Your Fundraising Career Empowerment Guide. In today’s conversation we wrestle with whether, in light of the higher aspirations within the nonprofit sector, the social sector playbook is overdue for some twenty-first century revisions or perhaps even needs to be completely re-written.Practically speaking, such aspirations seem to have overlooked how we expect fundraisers to spend their time. Mazarine and I talked about how many fundraisers are stuck in job descriptions that don’t afford them the opportunity to have meaningful conversations with donors and, instead, encourage them to spend the majority of their time tinkering around with new donor acquisition strategies. I find it to be highly disingenuous how often voices in our space advocate for bold ideas while ignoring the fact that most fundraisers are glued to their desk behind a computer screens. Conversations like this one leave me all the more convinced that, regardless of what is being said on the platform, most leaders in our space are quite content with cheap, arms-length fundraising practices that keeping our expectations of donors low while advancing nothing other than the status quo.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 Responsive Fundraising’s sense-making retreats, email me for more information. If you’d like to learn more about the upcoming nonprofit consulting conference, visit Mazarine’s website here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I don’t often get the pleasure of having a conversation with an author who has influenced my thinking, which makes today’s  conversation, in which I have the pleasure of hosting two of them, especially exciting. Both authors are returning guests so they know the routine. Rebecca introduces herself as having been fortunate to live in the company of generous people; she is the author of Growing Givers’ Hearts: Treating Fundraising as a Ministry. Tyrone introduces himself as the son, grandson, nephew, and cousin of Black Baptist preachers and First Ladies; and he credits these individuals for framing his perspective of philanthropy and inspiring his career. Tyrone is author of Madam C. J. Walker's Gospel of Giving: Black Women's Philanthropy During Jim Crow.Tyrone explained that Growing Givers’ Hearts as gave him permission, early in his career, to think differently about the work we do. He describes the book as an encouraging counter-narrative to what Robert Payton begrudgingly referred to as the “business of fundraising.” I appreciated how our conversation centered on those donors who are easily overlooked in much of contemporary fundraising practice. In many ways our conversation raises the question of whether Madam CJ Walker, were she were alive today, would be cooperative with or intolerant of contemporary practices. As Tyrone suggests, Walker might have expected us to ask ourselves whether we had earned the right to ask. If the answer is no, as Rebecca suggests, would we have the patience to lean into the relationship until we have earned that right?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 Responsive Fundraising’s sense-making retreats, email me for more information. If you’d like to purchase a copy of Rebecca’s or Tyrone’s books, visit Responsive’s library here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Today I had the pleasure of a lengthy conversation with Gloria Novovic about “Rethinking Philanthropy,” a series of articles published by The Philanthropist Journal that seeks to chart a “just transition” towards a vision of Canadian Philanthropy that is anti-racist, justice-oriented, and based in solidarity. Gloria began by observing that, while there is a lot of rethinking about philanthropy going on, much of it is oriented towards a critique of what we have done wrong in the past rather than what we can do right going forward. Today’s conversation begs the question of whether the nonprofit sector has itself stuck in the wrong story and posits that, rather than trying to mimic what the private sector or our government accomplishes, we need to see our distinctiveness as a good thing. Among the many insights that Gloria offered, she described our sector as winning by losing: in the process of winning the support of large donors, corporations, and other power brokers, we lose the connection with our own communities, making it increasingly difficult to accomplish what we originally set out to do. Another example would be the sector’s over-reliance on the marketable charity model that appeals to a donor’s individualism and their desire to be the hero in their own stories but doesn’t appeal to a sense of justice and raise their awareness of the need for systemic change.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 Responsive Fundraising’s sense-making retreats, email me for more information. For more information about the series we discussed, click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

What I initially appreciated about my conversation with Tony was that, after he found himself dissatisfied with his work as an attorney, he re-engineered himself as a fundraiser and has since found planned giving to be very meaningful and rewarding work. Tony describes himself as an evangelist of planned giving and is the founder and the creator of the Planned Giving Accelerator which helps nonprofit leaders design and implement a planned giving program for their organizations.  As we have had very few podcast conversations about planned giving, I was especially grateful that Tony came prepared to address several of the myths that often get in the way of launching a successful planned giving effort. After Tony addressed what is perhaps the most insidious of planned giving myths - the idea it is a conversation about death - we explored a few others that linger close behind on the list. As I shared with Tony, I recall early in my career making the assumption that planned giving was highly technical work that only highly trained individuals were qualified to do. I also recall numerous times throughout my career hearing that discussions about planned gifts would undermine an organization’s opportunity for more immediate support. 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 Responsive Fundraising’s sense-making retreats, email me for more information. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation today with Melanie reminded me of the work of that Damon Centola has done on understanding how digital networks affect social change. Very similar to Centola’s observations, Melanie wants to us to make sense of who our digital champions are and what value they can bring to the organization. These individuals create the social reinforcement that is often essential in compelling others to act. As I suggested to Melanie, the less predictable aspects of this approach will be unsettling for those who prefer to see a straight line between themselevss and the donation. However, as we all know, such “assembly line” fundraising has been waning for some time; and perhaps the nay-sayers just need some encouragement from the people like Melanie to convince them to give this nonlinear approach a try. What I most appreciated about our conversation was hearing how this concept applies to the baby boomers and those we may assume are not especially responsive to playing meaningful roles in our online strategies. I think we can very easily make sense of the idea that boomers are just as inclined as the rest of us to share what’s important to them and want to know that they are influencing the decisions of others in positive ways. I also appreciated the idea that digital champions could resolve some of the weaknesses in our new acquisition efforts. Rather than acquiring a large number of “warm glow givers” who can’t be counted on to give again, the digital champion affords an efficient (albeit less predictable) and gradual yet steady way of creating a donor community that can be counted on for many years to come.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 for more information. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Tim insists that the fundraising community has become “guru-city” - chock full of self-declared experts who believe everything they say is golden. Tim believes that there really is no such thing as a fundraising expert and instead of having all the answers, he has designed a company that allows him and his team to be about the business of learning. The team at NextAfter wants to journey alongside their clients in order to understand what the donor is saying to them. Tim describes their team in much the same way that we refer to ours at Responsive as a professional learning community. Tim’s approach to learning and expertise evidently informs his opinions about the how and why of messaging that we employ in fundraising. He explained that thanks to the Don Drapers of the world, we have all developed impressive bull-s**t detection capabilities which allow us to see right through much of what of what shows up in our inboxes. Tim wants fundraisers to wrestle with what should be glaringly obvious: no matter how shiny and impressive it might appear to us, many of our messages aren’t getting through resulting in a donor response that doesn’t match all the hype. Tim explained that much of the disappointment that we encounter is a consequence of having allowed our marketing impulses to get in the way of our ability to demonstrate that real human beings are hitting the send button. 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 for more information. For those who would like learn more about the NextAfter, visit their website here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Today Nneka started our conversation by sharing some additional perspective into the thoughts that she shared in Collecting Courage, a collection of personal experiences written by Black fundraisers whose stories make us think twice about the inherent goodness we often assume of our sector. Nneka shared how fundraisingafforded her an opportunity to find herself; from there she began to understand the meaningful role that fundraising plays in starting movements, preserving history, and telling the stories of oppressed people. After celebrating the work of the Collecting Courage authors and some of the history of this project, Nneka challenged us to contemplate the possibility of rested Black women taking the helm of today’s nonprofit sector. To clarify, we’re not talking about tokenism or another committee. Nneka insists that there are perfectly capable, willing, and ready Black women who have the power and influence to completely overhaul the culture of our sector. Nneka argues that, instead of continuing to descend into irrelevance, such a collective move may be the essence of what’s necessary to effectively address many of the challenges our sector currently faces.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 for more information.For those who would like learn more about the Collecting Courage project, visit their website here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

It seems a lot of us are thinking about career changes lately; and my conversation today with Kristi begs the question of whether fundraisers are, to use her words, being ruthless advocates for themselves. Kristi started our conversation with the topic of adequate compensation; however, as I shared with her, I remain skeptical that compensation alone in our space is the real challenge. Regardless, Kristi insists that the next generation of fundraising professionals must keep reading; keep experimenting with new ideas; and, when it comes to adequate compensation and benefits, keep brining it up!Among the many compensation and career development questions that we contemplated today was whether fundraising as a career path has a tendency to plateau and inevitably leave us looking for something else. Why is it that after a decade or so, so many of us are looking for opportunities that our employers can’t offer? As I shared with Kristi, I have often wondered how many of our challenges in the sector would remedy themselves if more of us never confined our careers aspirations to fundraising in the first place and instead aspired to be “fundraising CEO’s” who are as confident and capable of ensuring mission delivery as they are mission advancement.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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Today I enjoyed a thought-provoking conversation with Killian, one of the newest members of our consulting team here at Responsive. Killian has found fundraising to be very meaningful work and enjoys assisting his clients in getting it right. Killian and I began our conversation by asking how many fundraisers actually want the responsibility of building meaningful relationships with their donors and will stick with relationships long enough to ensure the the most significant and sustainable levels of support. We went on to discuss whether fundraisers should aspire to be our community’s best boundary spanners, admired and recognized as being confident at the lunch table with people who are unlike themselves and whose experiences and world views are very different from their own.Killian reminded me that it was Tocqueville who applauded Americans for their tendency to voluntary organize associations rather than rely on the marketplace and the state to orchestrate social relations. It has often occurred to me that, as our society becomes increasingly diverse and pluralistic, fundraisers have an opportunity to shine in a myriad of ways that extend far beyond their ability to secure large checks. Fundraisers have the opportunity to learn how to be especially confident in coffee shops and across lunch tables with people who see and understand the world very differently than they do.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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation today with Collin reminded me of an important point that we often make during our roadshows and when working with clients. Do fundraisers know how to differentiate between and ensure their organizations benefit from both low and high context fundraising efforts? One of the fundraiser’s primarily responsibilities is to discern when low context fundraising efforts have done their part and when high context fundraising practices are now in order. It is at this point in the relationship that a fundraiser must have a strategy in place that transitions the relationship from mailboxes and inboxes to coffee shops and lunch tables. As I argued in my first book, this can be as easy as distinguishing between the strategies that ensure the initial gift and those that secure the subsequent gift. Colin is certainly right about the fact that our friends who deliver on low context, “lane one” tactical efforts lack the incentive to move donors out of their preferred channel. He points out that reducing volume hurts everyone who is invested in this initial-gift oriented part of the process. Their systems are designed to always deliver on volume in the most efficient way possible. Knowing this to true, the discernment process for shifting gears is on those most accountable for the overall effort and who are responsible for creating and implementing fundraising strategy.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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

In her recent contribution to Carefully & Critically, Meena used the word “struggle” to describe her professional journey over the last two years. I have similarly used the word “angst” to describe what so many of our colleagues have articulated in the more than 170 podcast conversations that we have broadcast since March of 2020 when the pandemic became our reality. Meena’s article and today’s conversation are an exploration of the wisdom that she’s gained with the help of her LinkedIn Community in the last two years and how she has been able to apply that wisdom to her work.So many of our guests have described the last couple of years as a journey towards understanding the struggle of being committed to meaningful work that can so easily let us down. As a data enthusiast, the struggle has afforded Meena an opportunity to explore questions that otherwise might have been ignored and overlooked. For example, how could analytics evolve in such a way so as to provide us with more desirable qualitative outcomes rather than the mere the quantitative outcomes we’ve come to expect? And how might we identify those who are as inclined to sustain meaningful, long-term relationships as they are to write a check?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 mefor more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Early in my career, I learned pretty quickly that a sure-fire sign that you’re dealing with a wizard is that everything is focused on what you’re lacking. Then, after being convinced of what you’re lacking, the wizard is relentless in promising to deliver of solutions that will forever ensure he’s at the center of your thinking. This isn’t a story our team at Responsive buys into; and Mallory, our guest today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast, evidently doesn’t buy it either. Mallory wants more fundraisers to recognize that they already have what it takes to be successful and that focusing on what’s missing only gets in the way of learning this most important truth. Today’s conversation was all about asset-based thinking and the unfortunate tendency in our sector to focus on what’s missing. Walk around the exhibit hall at any fundraising conference and you’ll quickly discover just how many wizards are betting on our deeply entrenched deficit mindset. Whatever we feel we may be lacking, Mallory wants to us to be especially aware of the fact that our ability to build genuine and meaningful relationships, arguably the most important ingredient in renewing a donor’s support, is a characteristic that most fundraisers have in sufficient supply even before accepting a job. Mallory wants us to remember that it’s often in those sincere and sometimes emotional moments that we put ourselves out there and yield the most significant and sustainable levels of support. When we show up as our genuine selves, willing to be vulnerable and honest, many of our beliefs and assumptions about how things work no longer matter all that much.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 mefor more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Today I asked Janelle and Nikki if the aspirations employers have for their employees are missing anything that we should consider about those we will be hiring in ten years. Jobs for America’s Graduates helps young people succeed both in school and on-the-job to ensure that they have opportunities that afford them productive and rewarding careers. Having served millions of students since 1980, the team at JAG recognizes that this moment in time is unlike any other and demands exponential growth in the next several years. My conversation today with Janelle and Nikki had me wondering if we’re preparing the right path for our next generation of fundraisers and whether the challenges we’re encountering today will be the same in another decade. In order to create the workspaces that will meet the expectations of tomorrow’s young people, those whose educational journeys have been abruptly interrupted by a worldwide pandemic, tomorrow’s workforce will need to be agile, go deep and meet young people where they are in the world.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 mefor more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

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. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

It’s pretty obvious that, rather than staring at our laptops, Tim and I would have preferred to have today’s podcast conversation on a back porch with some bourbon and a few cheap cigars. The two of us arranged this conversation to talk about NeonOne’s report that just released yesterday. However, it didn’t take either of us very long to climb up on our soapboxes. Nearly everything we ranted about today centered on the question of whether more should be expected of the those publishing reports about fundraising trends and donor behavior. Or, as Paulo Freire would say, is fundraising suffering from a serious case of narration sickness?I really appreciate Tim’s observation that we are at an inflection point in the fundraising community, and this won’t be the last time that I applaud his assertion that we’re an industry that worships transactions. The question is whether those who publish reports that quantify this behavior are doing the heavy lifting to help us make sense of how we can change what we’re seeing. For example, it’s one thing the for the FEP to remind us every year that our renewal rates suck; it’s another to reveal what it is about our practices that ensures this trend never makes meaningful improvement. Perhaps it’s time the authors provide us with a more enlightened explanation of what’s really happening.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 for more in formation. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I am always grateful to our guests on The Fundraising Talent Podcast because sometimes they help me make sense of some of the ideas that are rolling around in my head. I, like many of you, am trying to reconcile what’s happening on the other side of the planet with the challenges of everyday life at home. Today, I asked Debra whether the unfolding tragedy in Ukraine was an opportunity for fundraising to live up to its potential and whether there will be things that play out in the weeks and months ahead that we will need to understand on a more existential level.Before we dived deep into these questions, Debra introduced herself as someone who found her way into fundraising because she was “tired of selling high priced shoes to women who should know better.” Now, after having tried to retire, she finds herself in the trenches trying to help charities discover a bold, brave way of funding whatever it is they set out to do in the world.  Evidently, Debra and I prefer see fundraising through what is known as the symbolic lens. This is where we see the opportunity to nurture generosity, connectivity, and meaning. Debra wants us to understand that the meaning of what we’re doing can easily get lost in the tactics. She wants us to see ourselves as being more than master technicians who can ensure the most impressive outcomes from an appeal letter or our next special event. Debra insists that truly generous people don’t need their names out on the sides of buildings. At its best, fundraising should afford us an opportunity to stand alongside the people of Ukraine helping to feed and care for children in the midst of a war zone.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 mefor more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

What happens when our criticism of the donor backfires and, like a page from an Ayn Rand novel, all our philanthropists begin to disappear? What happens when the controls that we currently enjoy having at our finger tips start to work in the donors’ best interests instead? What immediately came to mind during my conversation today with Paul was discussions of VRM technology that would allow the donor to cut off access to their information with the flip of a switch. Paul wants us to consider the fact that some of the information asymmetry inside our CRM’s has the potential to backfire which could result in class-action lawsuits and hordes of donors insisting that their donations be returned. With so much bad behavior going on in the sector, Paul believes that such events are just a matter of time.While discussing Paul’s new book, The Future of Fundraising, I asked him for his best advice for the young fundraiser who is perhaps still trying to decide whether or not to stick with this career path. His advice is to pay closer attention and develop a greater sense of how everything actually comes together. As we say at Responsive, young fundraisers need to learn how to think more carefully and critically about what it is they’re doing and why. I concur with all of Paul’s advice with the additional warning that most of our fundraising wizards have no desire whatsoever to see young fundraisers learn how to think more critically about the work we do. Rather than being duped by the wizards and getting frustrated when our donors don’t behave like we want them to, Paul wants us to better understand the world that our donors are operating in and to become more savvy of the systems that increasingly shield donors from our bad behavior.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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

What if what ails contemporary fundraising has less to with those who are in the fundraising seat and more do with the leadership style of those we’ve given the privilege of being the boss? Many of our recent conversations have shed light on how we are raising the expectations we have of our leaders. Today’s conversation with Kim Jennings suggests that some believe we could reduce the turnover and improve performance by expecting that the boss embrace a new approach to leadership. Kim wants to see fundraising leaders become much less authoritarian and metric-driven and, instead, see our work more holistically and reliant on coaching skills. Kim has observed that many of our bosses are great at giving directions - they know how to assign metrics and tell us whom to ask and for how much. But once the directions are given, these bosses don’t have much more to offer. Kim points out that the same can be true for their approach to professional development - they are more than happy to tell us which conferences to attend and what books to read; but they aren’t equipped to coach on the sidelines, giving meaningful encouragement and support in real-time. Kim also pointed out that many of today’s supervisors are very talented fundraisers who, themselves, never had the benefit of bosses who really mastered the supervisory role. This reality is well-hidden behind our obsessive search for the “one best way” of fundraising and our constant accumulation of donors which inevitably leaves us exhausted and without the necessary margin for developing good leadership skills. 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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

The pandemic has been a reminder that our world is not predictable; that most of what happens is beyond our control; and that, if you really want to accomplish your goals, the best you can do is remain self-aware and highly adaptable. For our team at Responsive, it’s been a challenging two years trying to keep a vision alive while managing the expectations of those who wanted to be a part of something new at one of the messiest times in human history. In today’s podcast conversation, I am pleased to introduce Mike Dixon, a long-time friend and now business partner, who genuinely believes in what we aim to achieve for the nonprofit sector and brings a number of strengths that I admittedly don’t have. Despite the myriad of challenges that we have encountered, Michael shares an appreciation for what has been accomplished in the last two years and looks forward to providing leadership to our consulting team in the years ahead.  In many ways, today’s podcast conversation follows the theme of managing our own expectations and those of others in order create environments where fundraising can thrive.  We talked about whether employers are creating unreasonable expectations for their fundraisers that decrease the likelihood of genuine and authentic relationships. We suggest that a large number of today’s fundraisers are deliberately avoiding meaningful engagement, not out of fear of rejection or lack of experience, but because such interactions are often accompanied by expectations from boards and bosses that are beyond the fundraisers’ control. The oft-cited  “culture of metrics” creates the illusion that one can control more than they actually can and compels fundraisers to rely on strategies that avoid rather than advance meaningful engagement.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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My guest today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast is Kimberly, host of The Intersection Podcast and avid user of Clubhouse which is perhaps were we first met about eighteen months ago. Kimberly kicked us off with the idea that fundraising is long overdue for a reset. She believes that many of the underlying beliefs and assumptions that have gotten us to where we are today need to be surfaced and understood; and, as painful as it might be, we may have to let go of some of them. Kimberly and I agreed that much of this reckoning could happen with a simple overhaul of the fundraiser’s job description, a consistent theme in several recent conversations. Instead of signing on for job descriptions that don’t look any different than an operating manual for a machine churning out inanimate objects at scale, fundraisers need to look for opportunities where they are given the chance to build meaningful relationships with donors who, rather than behaving like self-interested consumers, see themselves as citizens who shared a common commitment the positive change we aspire to bring about in our communities.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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

What do you get when you put an academic who is all about the most effective fundraising methods between two rabble rousers who never shy away from giving their opinions. That was the lineup today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast with Dr. Russell James, author of The Socratic Fundraiser, and Greg Warner, founder of MarketSmart. The essence of our conversation was whether fundraisers both desire and know how to have genuine conversations with their donors and whether using the Socratic method is the ideal pathway to the meaningful opportunities that are available to our organizations. Today’s conversation reminds me of earlier conversations in which we’ve talked about how the sector has seemingly confused the advantages of being great story-tellers with those of being great story-listeners.What I found especially thought-provoking was how we ended up asking why boards and bosses are notoriously uninterested in fundraising methods that afford the fundraiser and donor opportunities for meaningful dialogue. While we can all agree on the reasons why one would allow the donor to be the hero in their own story, we must ask ourselves why we don’t design strategies that allow this to happen. Greg’s explanation for why this doesn’t happen as it should really had me thinking; more often than not, fundraising design reflects the desires of boards and bosses who want to ensure that they maintain their role as the hero in the story.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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Today I was privileged to connect with Laura Tepper, Executive Director of Development at the University of Pennsylvania, Carey Law School where she oversees all annual, major, and planned giving efforts. Her career spans all functions of frontline fundraising, including the recent Power of Penn’s Law campaign that raised $281M including two of the most significant gifts ever given to an American Law School. Today Laura and I talked about whether returning to the office is a reasonable expectation or if we should perhaps allow remote working to become the norm. This is an especially important conversation for Penn with its historic location in the heart of Philadelphia.This really had me thinking about how much of fundraising hinges on the meaning behind significant places and whether becoming overly reliant on virtual spaces is going to have effects that we haven’t quite begun to anticipate. We can all appreciate what a zoom platform affords us in terms of fostering meaningful engagement; however, such platforms will never have the capability to transport us to experiences that are deeply rooted in a very familiar and particular place. Our conversation had me wondering whether our donors, even though they aren’t always in the room with us, count on us to rekindle their affinity for meaningful places.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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

How many job descriptions will dramatically change in our post-pandemic world? This is the essence of the conversation I had with Brent, founder of Evertrue who, like myself, never shies from the opportunity to provoke a conversation about what might take our fundraising efforts to another level. During today’s conversation on The Fundraising Talent Podcast, Brent pointed out that we were all reminded very quickly that meaningful conversations with our donors don’t necessarily require a plane ticket and a stay at the Holiday Inn. This awakening among boards and bosses could arguably have the effect of redefining a lot of jobs for a lot of fundraisers.What is especially thought-provoking about today’s conversation is the notion that the pandemic has afforded an entire new cohort of fundraisers the opportunity to experience what academics are now calling perceived proximity - the sense that we are in the same room with someone who could literally be on the other side of the world. This perceived proximity could be what’s necessary to move large numbers of donors towards more meaningful levels of support. Brent and I shared the observation that some opportunities simply won’t budge beyond a certain point when all they’re counting on is an arms-length approach.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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I could enjoy conversation with Guirlaine for hours, listening to how she describes her work and allowing her to provoke my thinking about how we can more effectively seize opportunities to a be real fundraisers. Today’s conversation was about Guirlaine’s  article in Responsive’s winter edition of Carefully & Critically. Guirlaine wants more of us to learn how to stop being so focused on money, get it out of our way, and begin to experience fundraising as more meaningful work. She asks why fundraisers let money be the hero in their stories.Much of today’s conversation was about understanding how fundraising builds a bridge between the haves and have nots allowing us to see and experience our common humanity. We concluded with the recognition that we have to find freedom from the belief that we and our donors are not bound together; and, instead, see that we are in an interdependent relationship. We have to allow the work to transform us in the same way that we expect it to transform our donors.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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

For this last episode of The Fundraising Talent Podcast of 2021, I’m delighted that my friend Samuel Butler has returned to enjoy a conversation about his recent article in Responsive’s Carefully & Critically. As a fundraiser in the UK, I am grateful that Sam offers us a perspective of fundraising that those of us on this side of Atlantic don’t always have the benefit of.We started today’s conversation with Sam’s observation that the silver lining in the pandemic may be that it has given a lot of us an opportunity to sit back and really contemplate what it is we are doing. For the fundraising community, this has meant leaning into a number of difficult conversations that were much easier to overlook when we weren’t in the midst of a global pause. Sam and I meandered around the rest of his article and concluded with a statement he makes in the journal, “...we will need to bring the right people in to assist us in doing so; instilling in them a more robust and fearless attitude. We require fundraisers that are not reliant on the tired, tried-and-tested models that are simply not working in their current form; we need to embrace the change-makers, innovators and those of entrepreneurial spirit that are out there.”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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, click here.#responsivefundraising #fundraisingtalent This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

One of the privileges of hosting The Fundraising Talent Podcast is the opportunity to develop meaningful friendships with individuals like Lisa Baxter who originally participated in a panel discussion  back in the early 2019. Now Lisa’s back to talk to us about her featured article in the winter edition of Carefully and Critically. Today’s conversation was an no-holds barred one for both me and Lisa. I find it convicting to think that much of my fundraising experiences are similar to a game of checkers while someone like Lisa has always found herself in a far more complex game of chess. I hope that conversations like this one will help others not to take for granted the ease with which they may have been able to navigate this work.For those who have yet to download the winter edition of our journal, Lisa talks in her article about being totally and unapologetically yourself and giving yourself permission to stop playing by archaic rules and feeling the need to people-please. Of her experiences in this space, she wrote, “fundraising as a woman and while Black is best described as being visible and invisible at the same time. It’s exhausting and on par with what training for a marathon must feel like.” Whether the podcast, or the journal, this isn’t one you’re going to want to miss. 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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

What happens when a donor has a long history of giving, they have unimaginable wealth, and all the reasons in the world to support your cause, however something in your initial meeting suggests that they donor may have dementia. In these types of situations, Tony and Tara want fundraisers to do the right thing and get caught doing it. In what might become an increasingly common scenario, Tara and Tony want fundraisers to know how to honor the donor, meet expectations for their employers, and do so within an ethical framework. How do we ensure that our donors have the “donative capacity” to make a gift? Today my guests were Tara Adams and Anthony Pomonis who are raising awareness of the limitations that some of our donors might have and the care we should be expected to provide in response. Our conversation afforded us an opportunity to talk about ethics, metrics, privacy, and a number of other big issues that are sure to come up in these situations. If you’d like to learn more about Tara and Tony’s services, visit their website www.cognitiveempowerment.comAs 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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

How do those of us on the receiving side of charitable giving get bolder in what we ask and expect of those on the giving side of the relationship? Questions of this sort, originating from fundraisers all all stripes, convince me that an increasing numbers of fundraisers are anxious to establish influential peer relationships with their donors rather than the inferior, supplicant role that we often inadvertently assume. Our conversation today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast began with Sarah Beth making a case for why we should stop giving away the power we have by divesting in companies whose decisions with disagree with. Sarah Beth wants us to wrestle with the question of whether nonprofits are giving their power away by cutting ties with bad actors?Sarah Beth believes that rather than divesting in these relationships, we should strive to have the greater levels of influence and clout in order to change the directions of where these enterprises are headed. I would argue this means deeper, more meaningful relationships with key decision makers in the enterprises for which we are invested in. This is a remarkably different albeit very exciting place for the nonprofit leader to aspire to be. There are plenty of examples in life where we having some skin in the game in a prerequisite for having a say in our decisions are made. If we maintain the relationship, the ultimate question becomes whether we know how to be peer-to-peer with leaders in the two powerhouse sectors?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 for more information. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

April describes herself as a loyal Baltimore Raven’s fan and a lover of all things philanthropy, equity, and social justice. Our conversation today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast began with the assertion that fundraising has deliberately distanced itself from the truth and begs the question of what would happen if we were more honest with ourselves and our donors. April wants us to confront the fact that we are taught to be ok with the disconnect between reality and the narrative we tell the world. Perhaps our appeal letters are some of the most obvious examples of such deceit. April pointed out that our dishonesty amounts to a lack of authenticity and an obsession with jargon.April’s career has afforded her experiences on both sides of the shop, both raising major gifts and administrating programs. Having the advantage of multiple vantage points, she understands why it’s so easy to tolerate a story that isn’t true. But it isn’t just those of us on the receiving side who are telling a tale. April pointed out that our funders aren’t telling themselves a story that is any more accurate than ours. After discussing what is true and what isn’t, and contemplating how this translates into the experiences of women of color, our conversation ended in much the same place as it began. Those on both sides of the exchange need to insist on the truth. The question remains, who has the desire to tell it?As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Are you looking for a great opportunity to work for a world-changing organization and a boss who genuinely gets fundraising? Today’s podcast conversation with Megan is a quick addition to this month’s regularly scheduled guests. Megan is the Sr. Donor Relations Director at the Salvation Army in Milwaukee, and she is excited about hiring a new fundraiser to join her team. Megan has been a fan of the Fundraising Talent Podcast for quite some time; she was a guest in 2019, and I was delighted to have her back today for what we now call the “reverse interview.” Instead of interviewing the candidate, we put the boss in the hot seat and ask them questions that we believe everyone should ask a potential employer. If you, perhaps, are interested in joining Megan’s team, download more information here.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

When I first announced that I would be having this conversation with Tyrone, I described his telling of Madam CJ Walkers story as an indictment of the wizards of contemporary fundraising and I asked how much better the fundraising experience would be if we were encouraged to engage with donors like Madam Walker in more meaningful ways. While it’s certainly admirable that so many of our organizations express a willingness and desire to engage with more diverse communities, we have to also interrogate the reasons why we haven’t done so in the past. What have we not acknowledged about history or our identity that has prevented individuals like Walker from being better represented among our constituency.Tyrone shared with us today that he wanted to answer the question of what it meant to be a generous African American woman in the midst of Jim Crow and what it means to be a philanthropist who gives on their own terms. For Walker, giving wasn’t about what you give away late in life or as an extracurricular activity that you do with friends. Giving for Walker was a demonstration of her philanthropic agency and for causes that couldn’t wait until she had accumulated a lifetime of wealth. In a very practical sense, Tyrone’s book challenges us consider how many of today’s donors find themselves in the unseen middle, desiring meaningful engagement, and intent on contributing in meaningful ways and yet, instead of seeing them, we have pushed them into a cheap, mid-level donor program that neither recognizes nor acknowledges the opportunities such donors truly represent.Tyrone’s book, Madam C.J. Walker's Gospel of Giving: Black Women's Philanthropy during Jim Crow was recently awarded the 2021 AFP Global Skystone Partners Research Prize on Fundraising and Philanthropy, and the Alliance for Nonprofit Management's 2021 Terry McAdam Award for best book in nonprofit management. If you like to purchase the book, you can enjoy a 30% off by using the code F20UIP at https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p085352As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

If you’re the shop that is all about rushing your donors into year-end gifts for the mere purpose of achieving some arbitrary goal, you need to listen to today’s conversation on The Fundraising Talent Podcast. Today’s conversation with Alex begs the question of how to genuinely put the relationship ahead of the gift and how, in doing so, does the organization sets expectations for what is raised from year to year. Alex sees the donor experience as being like a journey that, from our vantage point, isn’t especially easy to predict. Rather than always interfering, today’s conversation offers a case for why we should create cultures where we can receive gifts when the donor is ready to take the next step in their journey.Today’s conversation reminded me that the most meaningful gifts will rarely align perfectly with our schedule. Despite the wizard’s insistence to the contrary, renewal rates are not the ultimate measure of fundraising effectiveness. Our eagerness to close gifts on our schedule is simply interfering with the donor’s journey which ultimately interferes with the long-term sustainability of their support. Study after study into why donors stop giving have always revealed this truth. Give yourself and your donors some breathing room this holiday season. They know you’re there.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation today with Al begs the question of whether now is the time for a new case for support which, perhaps, begins with having written one for ourselves. The bosses are calling everyone back to the office and no doubt insisting that we raise more money than we did last year, while opportunities to work elsewhere abound and donors are not giving as they did pre-pandemic. With all this movement and change, now is a great time to ask ourselves what we believe about fundraising; what motives we believe compel the decisions our donors make; and, most importantly, what will ensure that these relationships can be sustained for many gifts to come. Rather than a case for support, perhaps we owe ourselves a case for fundraising; not something one of the wizards of contemporary fundraising wrote, but something that articulates in our own words why our work matters.These are the types of questions Al and I pondered today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast. Al insists that fundraisers have to make a stronger case for fundraising to ensure that leaders recognize and appreciate the role we play in an organization. Al points out that many of our boards and bosses expect fundraising to just be a quick fix and couldn’t care less how we raise it. Arguably, this disregard for fundraising in theory is what drives the myriad of disappointments we encounter in practice. Every fundraiser owes themselves an employer who prioritizes genuine relationships ahead of the ask and, rather than expecting us to merely sell commodities, ensures that the organization has the advantage of meaningful gifts.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

The question I often want to ask any fundraiser who explains to me that they are frustrated and disappointed in their work is whether they know how to search out and identify opportunities that will ensure them an opportunity for meaningful work. Instead of discerning whether a new job will offer them the chance to shine in meaningful ways, I see far too many fundraisers gravitating toward alluring mission statements and charismatic bosses who ultimately let them down. My guest today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast is Scott Perry who has made it his business to help his clients improve these types of discernment skills. Scott wants to ensure that, rather doing work fraught with disappointment and burnout, all of us have the opportunity to flourish and thrive in our workplaces. Scott has recognized that many of us, regardless of the professional path we have taken, were told deceptive tales of how it all works. Most of these tales originated at the beginning of the twentieth century when efficiency, predictability, and control were all that mattered. Instead of creating opportunities for employees to be creative and curious and to make genuine human connections, many of our workplaces remain steeped in industrial era virtues that leave us feeling like we are merely parts of a machine designed sap every last ounce of our value.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation today with Gretchen reminded me of some of the observations that I have made concerning boards and fundraising. Throughout my career I have noticed two consistent yet disparate themes that I suspect those with even a brief tenure in fundraising will be familiar with. The first is what we might call “board knows best”: board members whose inclination is to always assume the existence of expertise that the fundraiser doesn’t have and therefore they must provide. The second theme, perhaps a defense mechanism in response to the first, is what we might call “blame the board” which is the tendency of nonprofit leaders and their fundraisers to scapegoat the board for all the reasons fundraising isn’t working. Neither storyline is particularly helpful, and I am hopeful that our listeners have the benefit of working for organizations that have matured beyond both of them. Today’s deliberation of board dynamics with Gretchen was much enjoyed. Perhaps a bit uncertain of where we were going at first, we arrived at an ideal where the board is advancing rather interfering with our fundraising efforts. We compared notes on where we have seen board members contribute in meaningful ways and where all they can seem to do is get in the way. If your organization is trying to reconcile the expectations you have (and don’t have) of board members when it comes to fundraising, don’t miss today’s conversation on The Fundraising Talent Podcast.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, a special thank you to Erica Yaeger and her team at the North Texas Food Bank for hosting our roadshow earlier this week. Your partnership is very much appreciated. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Carrie and Laura picked up on something during the pandemic that perhaps others were overlooking; while all of us were working remotely, many of us were experiencing extraordinary fundraising outcomes yet always insisting that they were eager to get back to the office. Why? What necessity is there for attending to the rituals of the office when we can achieve the same or perhaps even greater outcomes from home? When it comes to fundraising, especially for those whose focus is on major donors, do the obligations of the office do more harm than good? These were the questions I discussed with Carrie and Laura today on The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If your team has been discussing the idea of not returning to the office, you’re not going to want to miss this conversation. Carrie was leading a remote team long before the pandemic forced us all to work from home, and she has found it to be an especially effective tool for attracting and retaining top tier fundraising talent. Rather than requiring their major gifts officers to locate to north central Indiana, Saint Mary’s College relies on a distributed team of fundraisers who are located around the country. Today’s conversation with Carrie and Laura begs the question of whether more organizations will begin to discover that a field approach makes it easier to attract the talent they desire and ensures that greater fundraisers will stick around a lot longer.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

This week our guest is Sybil Ackerman-Munson at Do Your Good. Sybil shared with us the three types of donors that every fundraiser should know and understand. For two decades, Sybil has been a trusted advisor and has helped give away over $45 million. Sybil has served on numerous boards, task forces, and stakeholder groups; and what I most appreciated about our conversation today was that her insights have emerged from experience with being on both sides of the charitable gift exchange. I’m always up for a framework that helps us make more sense of ourselves and others, and that’s what Sybil had for us this morning. As she began to describe each type of donor, I immediately began to recall personalities throughout my career who fit each part perfectly. I have to say that, as someone who has spent my entire career thinking about how to better understand and relate to donors in more meaningful ways, Sybil’s three-type framework deserves to be at the top of anyone’s resource list. Sybil’s insights really knocked it out of the park this morning. If you’d like to learn more about Sybil and Do Your Good, visit their website here.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

A consistent theme in my conversations lately is that fundraisers need to be more diligent in determining who they work for and knowing whether they’re signing on for a job in which they can successful or one from which they will end up resigning in less than two years. It occurs to me that my conversation today with Cindy about her new book Raise It! The Reluctant Fundraiser's Guide to Raising Money Without Selling Your Soul may be a great place to begin improving this level of discernment. Cindy’s book raises asks whether we can effectively rewire our brains to address the reluctancies we have towards fundraising. Cindy insists that rewiring how we think about fundraising is the only way to ensure we’re getting in front of our donors in meaningful ways, enjoying the work, and securing extraordinary gifts that advance our missions. What was perhaps most thought provoking about today’s conversation was the question of whether we should stay put when we find ourselves working for a reluctant fundraiser. Cindy challenged my thinking with the observation that some of the most reluctant CEO’s are also heads of organizations that are doing the most important work. Rather than bailing on the job, perhaps we need to ensure that the boss is willing to properly elevate our role and demonstrate a willingness to get out in the field with us where they can begin to dismantle some of their flawed assumptions. If you’d like to purchase a copy of Cindy’s new book, visit this link and be sure to use the coupon code responsive to get ten-percent off.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I have enjoyed getting to know Brian and am eagerly awaiting the next time I’m in Indy so that, as we did just months before the pandemic, we can enjoy great food and drinks as we banter about how to fix all of fundraising’s problems. Brian, now Vice President for Research at RNL, has been an annual giving and major gift officer and hosts the Fundraising Voices podcast. Lately, he has been asking if we can build an equation that increases giving? As Brian shared with us today, the donation equation combines six factors drawn from top industry insights that have been shown to increase the chance a donor will give to your organization.Rather than getting too deep into the weeds on Brian’s equation, I asked whether his equation could contribute to what I believe is the emergence of a field approach to developing fundraising expertise. Because of the nature of our work, and noting where fundraisers say they have had their most valuable learning experiences, I see evidence that many of us are tossing out the early twentieth century guide to professional development and choosing alternative paths to mastering our craft. I’m routinely hearing that, rather than being enchanted by the highly-technical wizardry that is easily taught in the classroom, many young professionals would prefer a more hands-on approach that is complemented by tools like Brian’s which can facilitate learning in the field.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I recently asked my friends Rebecca and David to join me to discuss an article that David had written about what leaders in higher education should expect of fundraising in the next year. Our conversation offered a whole new layer of meaning to David’s encouragement that advancement leaders need to be carefully thinking about renewal, re-engagement, and raising the bar. Perhaps what was profound about this conversation was the notion that fundraisers learn how to appropriately “dwell” with a donor in order to ensure that they are putting the relationship ahead of whatever proposal we are trying to advance. Afterwards, I had to double-check my understanding of what it means to “dwell” with someone; it is not a term I’m accustomed to using and certainly something I wanted to contemplate more. To “dwell” means to remain for a time, and when we say that we are dwelling with someone there is often a degree of intentionality that accompanies it. How many of us have learned how to dwell with a donor without finding it necessary to close the gift? This notion of dwelling echoes Rebecca’s challenge that, as we emerge from the pandemic, fundraisers will need permission to spend time with their donors having conversations that are about more than closing another gift. She insisted that we have to make room for listening to what people are saying to us, both directly and indirectly, about their experiences in the last two years and how all this will inform their decisions.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Caitlyn wants to know what is holding back some nonprofits back from asking their donors for more significant and unrestricted gifts. While Caitlyn knows these types of exchanges aren’t sexy and may not seem all that appealing to some of our donors, they arguably provide an organization with the most flexibility in advancing their mission. But suppose our understanding of how we arrive at such opportunities is flawed? Caitlyn has learned that investing in relationships that lead to more in-depth conversations is the path to discovering where these opportunities can be found.  Unfortunately, some leaders won’t encourage their fundraisers to venture down the exploratory path and, therefore, never connect the dots between the tight restrictions applied to a gift and their lack of investment in relationships.Our conversation today raises the question of whether leaders understand what it takes to raise the expectation of more flexibly and generous gifts. With these aspirations in mind, we are talking about an exchange that is rooted in the relationship (an exchange of gifts) rather than the proposal itself (an exchange of commodities). Instead of asking how many strings a donor can attach to a proposal to ensure their confidence in what they’re “buying,” we should be focused on how much trust, rapport, and familiarity we’ve mutually invested in the relationship before we exchange gifts. Experience has taught many of us that an overly anxious board or boss is far more inclined to build restrictions into a proposal than the donor who is far more gracious and generous once the relationship has matured.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

We have had a number conversations of the sort that Ben and I had today; and, admirably, all of our guests are generally very forthright about where they stand amidst debates about competing fundraising ideologies. Ben believes that too few individuals like him and me, white men of privilege, are doing their part in these conversations and that we all need to collectively acknowledge the inherent racism baked into our system. As someone who insists he’s in this for the long-haul, Ben wants to see a greater tolerance of risk, an inclination to lean into more than just what makes us comfortable, and the pursuit of more than job security. As I shared with Ben today, he and I are on the same page; and I admit to wrestling with some of the same questions that he is. I too want to ensure that I’m using my platform to do more than merely make life more comfortable for myself. That said, there are some questions that I don’t believe enough fundraisers are asking themselves when it comes to competing ideologies. With all the talk about community-centered versus donor-centered fundraising, I’m curious whether the boards and bosses even give a damn. Are those of us in the fundraising community content to fight amongst ourselves, or are we doing the difficult work of ensuring that our organizations know what these frameworks actually mean? And if our organization were to fully understand them, would we unplug the fundraising practices that don’t align with them?As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation today is the final of four that we have had with our spring contributors to the most recent publication of Carefully & Critically; Responsive’s professional journal aimed at elevating voices from the mainstream as well as those at the fringe of the fundraising community. In John’s article, he is asking if the pandemic has been good for advancement and like our conversation earlier this week with Dominique, whether the pandemic was the beginning of a season in which we explore new ways of doing meaningful work. As I have said repeatedly both on and off-air, the pandemic offered fundraising a qualitative turn.John tells us that after the pandemic became our reality in March of 2020 he was slow to enact too many changes and that perhaps like most of us, he was unsure whether this was going to last weeks, months, or years. After a few weeks of just taking it in, John was convinced that getting back to normal wasn't going to happen. John insists that in many ways how we conduct the business of fundraising has been changed forever. John believes the pandemic has given all of us opportunity to pause, rethink and refocus how we go about our work. And when asked whether that is necessarily a bad thing? John insists, absolutely not.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

This week’s podcast conversations are with contributing authors to our recent edition of Carefully and Critically, Responsive’s professional journal. Today we talked with Dominique Calixte who asks if it is time to rethink special events; and, later this week, we’re going to be talking with John Feudo who is asking if the pandemic has been good for advancement. In both of this week’s conversation’s, we are asking whether the pandemic has been the beginning of a season in which fundraisers can begin to experiment and explore new ways of doing what can and always should be meaningful work.In today’s conversation with Dominique we wrestle with the question of whether special events will ever measure up to the expectations that we have for them and, in our determination to see that they do, how much of the status quo are we are willing to let go. Dominique insists that special events are among the most transactional fundraising strategies that our sector relies on and that it is highly unlikely that attendees will engage in long-term partnerships. Dominique also challenges us to consider whether our events should continue to be designed for performative allyship and the momentary sense of changing the world or whether they can evolve in ways that elevate, celebrate, and reflect the communities that our organizations serve.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

This morning I was delighted to, once again, enjoy a conversation with our friend and fundraising colleague, Travis. In addition to keeping his feet in the field as a major gifts officer, Travis is the founder of Role Identity Solutions and an adjunct at the Lilly School of Philanthropy. Any of our regular listeners will know that Travis has afforded us several enlightening conversations here on the podcast, and I am grateful that he has also been one of the contributing authors to Responsive’s recent edition of Carefully and Critically. In his article, Travis asked what we in fundraising can learn from bad market research. What we can glean from the misadventures of the team at Segway is similar to what we learn as fundraisers when we are overly presumptuous about a donor’s interest in a particular initiative or when we overlook the possibility that their charitable interests have changed completely. Just as the team at Segway made the mistake of focusing their attention on Silicon Valley elites who, unlike the rest of us, can afford a $5,000 mode of personal transportation, fundraising has an enduring list of bad habits that can result in similarly disappointing outcomes. Travis wrapped up our conversation with the observation that a lot of us are currently gathering these types of critically important insights. Many fundraisers are finding themselves with the opportunity to re-engage donors that they haven’t interacted in meaningful ways since the before pandemic. Travis pointed out that much of our work in these cases is to be sensitive and aware of where our donors now find themselves. Rather than taking his donors for granted, Travis wants to be sure he knows whether his donors’ charitable interests have changed and whether they have any new priorities.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And if you’d like to download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Unless you have been living in a cave or under rock for the last couple of months, you’re aware that the labor market is hot as hiring freezes are over and the great resignation is being talked about in all types of industries. My conversation today with Wendy was all about how nonprofits are navigating this phenomenon and how leaders can ensure their people aren’t bailing on them. Wendy has devoted her entire career to serving nonprofit organizations and continues to do so as the managing partner at Boyden’s Boston Office.Here’s a question nonprofit leaders can ask themselves. If Wendy calls your fundraiser next week, what will they say to her? Perhaps they will say, “No, I’m not interested in making a change right now.” Or maybe they are going to say, “Yes, get me out of this crazy place as quickly as possible.” All of this really comes down to your employee retention strategy that Wendy insists shouldn’t be all that different from your donor retention strategy. Those on both sides of the charitable gift exchange want to be treated like living, breathing human beings and acknowledged for more than that how well they give or receive a check. If you’re worried about your one of your fundraisers bailing on you or you’ve got a vacancy to fill, this one’s for you.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And if you’d like download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

It was perhaps two years ago when a mutual friend introduced me to Meghan, and I immediately felt compelled to help elevate her ideas throughout the sector. Not only do I believe that Meghan represents a smart and ambitious generation of young leaders, but she is also demonstrating extraordinary courage in sharing her opinions both as a guest on the podcast today and as the featured contributor in our recent edition of Carefully and Critically. Meghan provided our readers with a very timely and provocative article that begged the question of whether our sector can learn how to better center the voice of the marginalized communities that we serve and offers a counter-narrative for how meaningful and effective a more community-based approach can be for those on either side of the exchange.As our conversation got really warmed up, Meghan and I wrestled with how much we believe in the current system and whether it can be counted on to meet some of the expectations that so many have raised as of late. I am far more skeptical. For example, as much as we like to believe that it can, I am quite convinced that the current system will not effectively deliver on our DEI aspirations. As admirable as our intentions might be, the homogenous population of donors that Megan refers to in her article are also the donors who collectively feed our deep-seated needs for efficiency, predictability, and control.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.And, if you’d like to read Meghan’s article as well as those from our other contributors, you can download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically here.   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Nonprofit bosses and hiring managers, are you trying to understand why your fundraiser just bailed on you? If so, this is the podcast conversation you need to hear. I met Kate after speaking at the Ottawa fundraising conference back in May, and we subsequently struck up a conversation on social media. Kate insists that we have got to stop sending a million emails as if we’re communicating with passive consumers and start treating our donors like human beings who actually matter to us. What quickly emerged from our conversation was the idea that perhaps fundraising needs to make some bets on our donors as loyal citizens instead of relying on marketing gimmicks that are, by design, sending all the wrong messages. Kate believes that the “iPad babies” aren’t going to tolerate the cheap, shallow tactics contemporary fundraising has gotten itself way too invested in.Kate insists that humanization is the most important part of fundraising and that perhaps those who are handing in their resignations right now are begging us to humanize the work and stop treating those on either side of the gift exchange like they are widgets in a well-oiled machine. Our conversation begs the question of how fundraisers can identify new opportunities where they are more than reluctant salespeople only accountable for closing deals. I would venture to say that Kate, just the like donor on the other side of the table, want organizations to stop making claims that anyone is at the center of their thinking, to stop looking for the next shiny gadget that will solve all your stewardship problems, and instead start thinking about how to create an environment in which the relationship between fundraiser and donor can thrive.As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to be a guest on the podcast, email us and let’s hear what you’ve got on your mind.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I have quite enjoyed getting to know Angee, first at our roadshow in Toronto in partnership with our friend David Hutchinson, then as a guest on the podcast shortly thereafter; now Angee is back to share with us how she has navigated the pandemic with the help of Responsive’s three lanes model. It was quite encouraging to hear that the centerpiece of our sense-making toolbox provided a framework for Angee to think through how she might approach the uncertainty of what has been our reality for the last eighteen months. While often confused for a prescriptive plan, the three lanes are intended to help fundraisers make sense of what’s leaning in their favor with the help of a systems-level understanding of how fundraising really works. Rather than relying on experts who notoriously put their experience on loan only to ensure they are called upon over and over again, tools like the Three Lanes ensure that fundraisers develop expertise of their own.Perhaps what most excites me about hosting a platform like this podcast, and creating tools rather that best practices, and elevating the ideas and opinions of fundraisers like Angee, is that it all contributes to a field approach for developing fundraising expertise. Instead of relying on those privelged with keynotes and breakouts in the Emerald City, the fundraising community benefits from expertise that is developed while navigating the messy and unpredictable Yellow Brick Road where fundraisers do hard work in their local context. I simply get the pleasure of hosting the party a couple of times a week and ruffling the feathers of those who are perhaps a tad bit overly invested in an early twentieth-century approach to professional development. I really admire the likes of Angee, and I’m grateful to consider her a friend. As always, we are very grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’re interesting in elevating the experiences that you’re learning in the field, perhaps you’d like to be a guest. We would love to hear from you! Email me at jason@responsivefundraising.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Sam was our guest on the podcast a year ago, and at the time he was navigating the uncertainty of the pandemic combined with unemployment and the recent loss of some friends. The conversation we had was about the notion that fundraising is about listening to stories rather than telling them. I recall thinking then as I listened to his story that, despite the set-backs, Sam was a talented individual with a knack for fundraising and that it would just be a matter of time before he would find himself on top again.My assumptions were correct; and Sam, just like a lot of fundraisers, has made a strong and positive recovery from what has been a difficult year for all of us. I have always found this to be case with fundraisers; despite the ups and downs of what can be very misunderstood and under-appreciated work, fundraisers have a tendency to bounce back very quickly. What was most telling about today’s conversation was that, in the midst of the last year, Sam’s confidence as a fundraiser has grown and his commitment to the fundraising community is even stronger. Sam is a great example of a fundraiser whose resolve to be successful in this work will benefit his employers for many years to come.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’re interested in having some assistance with hiring a talented fundraiser, let’s arrange a call. Email me here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Before the world shutdown, was your gala or golf tournament starting to wane? Are you ready to resume that event that, even before the pandemic, was perhaps yielding disappointing outcomes? Kevin wants event planners to consider abandoning what in some cases has evolved into an exhausting and uninspiring event generating nothing more than than a lot of small talk, and instead focus on genuine conversations among those at the table. Kevin wants us to take a chance on an unscripted engagement with fewer people around the table and, rather than being in control of everything, allow serendipity to do its part.As evidenced in today’s podcast conversation, Kevin has given as much thought to what these events should look like as what they shouldn’t. He believes it’s important that a convening event not be an attempt to solve every problem that surfaces around the table, that the host organization not assume responsibility for taking action on what emerges, and that the focus remain on the attendees rather than organization itself. As I shared with Kevin, I suspect that while this is an essential role that perhaps every nonprofit should see themselves as playing in their community, some will find this concept far more natural than others.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

In her more than 30 years of fundraising, Penny has observed that the money has become increasingly more important than the donor's giving experience. I would venture to say that the same has become true for fundraisers. Arguably, donor attrition and turnover are merely two sides of the same coin. To remedy this, Penny’s consultancy prioritizes renewing the support of current donors and ensuring a genuine human-to-human interaction that ultimately means a more meaningful experience for those on either side of the exchange.What was particularly thought provoking during today’s podcast conversation with Penny was her observation that fundraisers have become quite adept at asking but not so much at receiving. Our conversation raises the question of whether we have deliberately designed systems that ensure a high volume of asking without necessarily creating the most meaningful opportunities to receive. Penny had me wondering whether this offers some insight into our poor renewal rates; renewing a gift often begins with receiving the last gift well. Receiving well often changes the nature of the relationship.As always, we are grateful to our friends at Cueback for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Kathryn asks when we are going to begin having some tough conversations about the fundraiser’s experience? And, depending on where we find ourselves in the fundraising community, when are we going to ask whether we are contributing to or undermining their opportunity for success? Perhaps some of us don’t really care how successful the fundraiser actually is? For Kathryn, the answer to these questions is quite simple; whether we’re talking about boards or bosses, association leaders, consulting shops, direct response, search firms or wealth screening, the majority of us are curating a culture that has a creepy obsession with the numbers. From my vantage point, if we don’t learn how to measure at least something qualitative really quickly, the entire system might just collapse.Kathryn insists that our professional community, like so many others, has bought hook, line, and sinker into a fallacy that permits us to make every decision based entirely on what the quantitative data can tell us and disregard anything it can’t. We have naively come to believe that success can be measured with three indicators: visits, solicitations, and dollars. Nothing else. After coming to grips with our obsession with metrics, the next question Kathryn wants nonprofit leaders to ask is how fundraisers are supposed to succeed without first creating social capital. While not especially easy to measure, the research has been done and social capital is essential for achieving the most meaningful and sustainable levels of support.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring the Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow in your community, email me at jason@responsivefundraising.com  Reminder, you can download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Are today’s fundraisers really itching for more best practices, expensive credentials and industry buzzwords? If they are anything like Jessica in upstate New York, I don’t think so. As I listened to Jessica share her story today, I heard an individual who wants the opportunity to show up as her authentic self; and she wants the same for her team. The way I see it, Jessica is part of an emerging generation of fundraising leaders who recognize that the donor rarely cares one iota about our assent to professionalism. They would much prefer we demonstrate that the cause matters as much to us as we know it matters to them.For Jessica, fundraising as meaningful work has become an opportunity to share her story of overcoming adversity. Jessica’s story reminded me of my own challenges with a life-long seizure disorder. Despite the limitations this has created for me, it allowed me to relate to my major donors at the Epilepsy Foundation in very real and meaningful ways. What do you think; does adversity make for a better fundraiser? How do adverse experiences allow us to show up as fundraisers in unique and powerful ways that perhaps we have only begun to understand?As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to know more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow in your community, please reach out today.   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation today with Paul Hood, which in many ways is a continuation of the “listening” conversation that we had earlier this week, begs the question of whether fundraisers support the notion of grateful patient programs and the like, or do they merely tolerate them, and given the opportunity, would prefer that their work be more exploratory. When I think of fundraisers like Paul who insist that their practices align with the highest ethical standards, I believe they would be far more fulfilled without some the data and, instead, to simply rely on their communication and relationship-building skills. Both of which our guests consistently demonstrate that fundraisers have in remarkable and immeasurable ways. The question becomes whether their employers give them the opportunity to use them.Our conversation today aligns with some of the thoughts that I have previously expressed about the naïveté that is inherent in some of our thinking. I believe we are in the cusp of several decades of extraordinary fundraising; however, I am highly skeptical of whether the potential accurately aligns with the practices that we increasingly rely on to inform our work. For example, without having in-depth conversations with perhaps several people at the table, we can’t fully understand the vested interest of those who are ultimately influencing a gift decision. It’s one thing to know that that Mrs. Smith is perfectly capable of giving the hospital millions of dollars; it’s another to understand that the larger and more complex these gifts get, the more likely her children, trusted friends and loved ones, and professional advisors are going to want to have a say in how such a gift happens.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’re interested in hosting the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow, reach out and let’s talk.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Some of us don’t understand our donor’s decisions because we’re not listening. Today, Wanda and I wrestled with the question of whether fundraising professionals are taking the time to hear to their donors “money” stories. Wanda shared that by listening closely to the role that money has had in the lives of our donors, we are given an opportunity to resolve some of the other power dynamics that often surface in these relationships. What makes these conversations so important is that they afford the fundraiser insight into the nuances that inform their donor’s decisions and perspective that gift histories and wealth screening information cannot. While such data might enlighten us in some ways, we will never learn more than by sitting down, perhaps over coffee or lunch, and inviting them to share in this way. Wanda and I also talked about why some fundraisers don’t afford themselves this type of opportunity in their work. I would venture to say these individuals often miss out on experiencing fundraising as exploratory work. I suspect that those fundraisers who feel they did not sign up to be curious chameleons struggle to identify with the person across the table and feel safer maintaining a transactional relationship. Rather than being invested in a genuine and meaningful relationship that can be counted on for many years to come, they would prefer to narrowly focus on the the gift at hand.As always, we are very grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to learn more about hosting Responsive’s roadshow in your community, please reach out and let’s talk. About our guest Wanda Scott, CAP®, CFRE, Founder and Principal Consultant of Wanda Scott & Associates, is a fundraising and development professional with over 19 years’ experience in the nonprofit sector. Wanda has successfully led development and advancement teams in nonprofit and university settings and as a chartered advisor in philanthropy (CAP®) she has advised individuals on transformative philanthropic giving. Her passion for supporting professionals in fundraising is the catalyst for starting her business and joining national and local efforts to strengthen the fundraising field. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

I’m always grateful when guests like Becky allow me to integrate their thinking and are likewise confident enough to integrate mine. Today, Becky and I wrestled with how we as white fundraisers can be allies with our black, brown and indigenous colleagues. To begin with, I suspect that what triggers most of our hesitancy is making our way through conversations of this sort without putting our foot in our mouth, saying something we might regret, or implying that we’re completely naive and out of touch. My inclination is always to jump in with both feet, to be receptive to feedback, and to be able to admit quickly when you’ve made a mistake.Becky fully recognizes that she has resources available to her that would benefit her BIPOC colleagues in meaningful and significant ways. In partnership with our colleagues at CCF, she has begun writing some thought-provoking pieces that reveal some of the inherent tension that many of us feel in these discussions. I suspect that conversations of the sort that Becky and I shared will increasingly becoming the norm - conversations in which white Americans put themselves out there; share their experiences as allies; discuss what did and didn’t work, what they learned from their experience, and how one can get better in these roles.Rebecca has worn many hats in the nonprofit sector: co-artistic director/co-founder of a theatre company, stewardship/event planner for a private school, program developer for a refugee resettlement org, and director of development/chief recycler for a youth arts org. Becky lives in Connecticut with her complicated and beautiful blended family. She is passionate about bees, ranked choice voting, and the NYTimes Spelling Bee.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. We are gearing up for a big fall and of you’d like to be a part of the line-up, reach out and let’s hear what you’ve got to say.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation today with Kevin reminded me of all the dangerous assumptions that we sometimes make about how fundraising really works and of the practices that often compel us to think about what we do. After 33 years of experience leading development programs for both local and international organizations. Kevin's not afraid to challenge people’s thinking when it comes to supporting good causes. For example, how many of our challenges originate from the belief that the only way to raise more money is to accumulate more donors? And, once donor acquisition is running amok, do hoards of $20-40 gifts lead one to assume that these gifts accurately reflect the capability of their donors? Do contemporary fundraising practices convince us that our donors are broke and therefore perpetuate our low expectations?Kevin insists that we need to treat all our donors like we would a major donor. He shared with me his experience of helping an organization go from from 14 to 40 major gifts officers after they came to the realization that they had built their new donor acquisition effort on the wrong assumptions. When conditioned on low expectations, these programs have a tendency to create an enormous volume of activity that makes it nearly impossible to discern a good signal from all the noise. Without being able to effectively change the nature of the relationship, these programs quickly evolve into an unhealthy dependency by keeping margins low and attrition high.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. We are gearing up for a big fall and of you’d like to be a part of the line-up, reach out and let’s hear what you’ve got to say.   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Several of our recent conversations have been about what fundraisers should expect of the organizations they work for and how they can discern whether the boss has an accurate understanding of how fundraising actually works. Sarah has taken this inquiry and made it the focus of her research. Among the various questions she asks, perhaps the most relevant for fundraisers in transition is whether they should expect the boss to have invested in their own professional development in fundraising.  In summarizing her work, Sarah was quick to give credit to those who have traversed this terroirty ahead of her, the most noteworthy perhaps being the 2013 underdeveloped study that has raised made us all much more aware of the challenges organizations face in terms of hiring and retaining fundraising talent. It was particularly interesting to hear what Sarah describes as a perception gap between how CEOs and Chief Development Officers understand their challenges and opportunities. Sarah also asks some key questions about whether the CEO takes fundraising seriously which then raises the question of why one would sign on to work with a boss who doesn’t. Talk about a distaster waiting to happen! Sarah found that those CEOs who made deliberate investments in their own professional development were more inclined to communicate about fundraising, contributed positively a culture of philanthropy, and fostered positive relationships with their fundraising employees. Sarah’s findings would support the conclusion that a CEO’s professional development reflects positively on its fundraising outcomes. As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring the Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow in your community, email me at jason@responsivefundraising.com  Reminder, you can download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Our recent conversation with Sandi Bliss caught Tammy’s attention. Our discussion reminded Tammy of some of the observations she made earlier in her career while supervising a team of fundraisers. Tammy observed that once her team no longer had something tangible to “sell,” they began to feel like impostors and didn’t quite know how to negotiate more complex and long-term giving opportunities.Tammy’s team found themselves at the place where transactional fundraising plateaus and where every attempt at selling the same “warm glow” becomes increasingly more difficult. Being stuck here means donor attrition sky rockets, fundraisers quit, and acquisition costs go out the roof. At Responsive, we call this transition point the messy middle lane, the place where a more meaningful gift reflects one’s genuine commitment to and confidence in the mission rather than the naive and impulsive assumption that they’re single-handedly changing the world. Tammy wanted her team to experience fundraising as meaningful work. And she wanted her team to experience a different kind of conversation with their donors, the sort that only some fundraisers ever learn how to have. These aren’t conversations about “what’s in it for me”; it’s not about selling a tote bag or a tee sponsorship, or putting a name on the side of building. It’s about being a citizen rather than a consumer.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring the Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow in your community, email me at jason@responsivefundraising.com  Reminder, you can download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

When meeting with a client, Sherry doesn’t go straight to fundraising tactics. Instead, in order to understand whether an organization is up to the task of achieving its goals, she begins by asking some probing questions. This often starts with knowing how much money needs to be raised, as opposed to some vague and arbitrary numbers, and whether there is a willingness to dedicate the resources necessary. As Sherry points out, a lot of us are signing on for jobs where the expectation is nothing more than to tell stories and ask for money. That’s not how it works. In the midst of all this talk about “the great resignation,” my conversation today with Sherry raises the question of why some fundraisers are signing on to work for bosses who don’t really get fundraising and perhaps have no intention of ever trying to. Before we accept an offer, perhaps we should discern whether the boss is committed to investing in fundraising. Sherry insists, and I concur, that fundraisers need to be confident saying, “No. We can’t raise more money on less, we can’t do it without spending, we can’t do it with half as many staff, and we can’t have such high expectations of our donors without also having higher expectations of ourselves; that’s just not feasible.”As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring the Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to learn more about hosting Responsive’s Roadshow in your community, email me at jason@responsivefundraising.com  Reminder, you can download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

As a Latinx fundraiser for thirty-five years, Armando has earned the right to have an opinion or two about the challenges we’re facing in today’s nonprofit sector and he believes that, in many ways, we’re missing the point in some of our most heated debates. Armando insists that if decolonizing philanthropy is our goal, it’s not going to happen by focusing on large foundations. We’ve got to remind ourselves what we’re all told in fundraising 101: foundations have never been where the real sustainable opportunities are and never will be. What’s worse, convincing ourselves that in some way the powers that be behind these large foundations will just hand over their power, influence, and assets is simply naive.Armando wants to remind us that these supposed powerhouses of philanthropy only account for a small fraction of what’s actually contributing to our sector and that they don’t hold nearly as much clout as some would like us to think. While their size, stature, and political influence may be intimidating, their financial impact is considerably less when compared to what individuals are capable of giving. Foundations account for just 18 percent of the money going to charity whereas individuals give upwards of 70 percent every year. To decolonize philanthropy by any definition, we’re going to have to recognize that the real opportunities exist at the lunch table interacting with individuals, not applying for grants from institutions. And to make the types of changes that the loudest voices in our space are calling for, Armando insists that fundraising professionals are going to have to recognize the power that they already have rather than asking someone else to give it to them.  As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to learn more about hosting Responsive’s Roadshow in your community, email me at jason@responsivefundraising.com.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Today’s conversation with Jeff at EAB was fascinating to say the least. Our conversation, informed significantly by the research that Jeff and his team have either conducted or been a part of, centered around the question of how much of fundraising’s pre-pandemic playbook we are going to throw out and what are we going to keep. Jeff shared with me that the traditional advancement models we see in higher education, largely predicated on alums willingness to show up and agreeing to participate, hasn’t been showing signs of improvement for quite some time. He explains that these aspects of fundraising has been on an unsustainable path for quite some time and that the pandemic simply forced many of us to confront this reality.Jeff explained that many of our challenges on the road ahead will surface simply because our inability to work out the economics. I suppose what was most encouraging to hear was how much opportunity is actually out there if we are willing to adapt, evolve and experiment with different ways of doing things. For example, Jeff noted that the number of major gift donors who, at many institutions, never receive any meaningful engagement reaches into the thousands simply because of their geographical dispersement and the immediacy with which we expect our efforts to pay off. In between the lines of what I hear in a conversation like this is an opportunity for fundraising to experience a real growth spurt and to perhaps become more exploratory work.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring the Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow in your community, email me at jason@responsivefundraising.com  Reminder, you can download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically here.   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

As is customary on the podcast, we have thought provoking conversations that give us hope of one day arriving at more enlightened fundraising practices. Well, today’s conversation really had us moving in that direction; and I am really grateful to Cathy for being our provocateur today. Cathy helps organizations raise money in difficult places, for causes that don’t always make for the easiest of stories to tell, and I appreciate her for challenging our thinking about where storytelling makes sense and where it doesn’t.The questions Cathy had us contemplating were whether fundraising professionals are necessarily entitled to tell the stories of those we serve and in what cases our expectations might cause unintentional harm. With all the Storytelling going on, it’s a fair question. When should someone’s story, perhaps one that involves unresolved trauma and abuse, be off limits even when told with the best of intentions?As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring the Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow in your community, email me at jason@responsivefundraising.com  Reminder, you can download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically here.   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation with Karl immediately reminded me of the brilliant little book, Obliquity, by LSE and Oxford professor John Kay, who makes the argument that our goals are best achieved indirectly. While counterintuitive, Kay explains that the most successful, most profitable enterprises don’t focus on profits or shareholder value. Arguably, this is a lesson fundraising hasn’t learned. Far too much of contemporary fundraising adheres to a direct approach, and I would venture to say that our fundraisers suffer the brunt of this truth. The direct approach convinces us that our attention should be narrowly focused on donors and dollars.Karl has developed an appreciation for the indirect route in real time, discovering that being embedded in his community in a variety of ways makes for opportunities that he wouldn’t otherwise encounter. The oblique approach has taught him to trust the process and to not to become overly anxious when things diverge from where he thought they were headed. Karl has learned that fundraising at best is exploratory work; that it rarely goes according to our plans; and that, like everything that involves living, breathing human beings, it’s going to be messy and unpredictable.As always, we are grateful to our friends at Cueback for their support of The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to learn more about hosting Responsive Fundraising’s roadshow in your community, let’s coordinate a call.#unpredictable #responsivefundraising This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

It sounds as if donor-centered fundraising might have a bit of a PR problem, and Scott’s got the data to explain why. A couple of months ago, Scott launched a poll which asked, is "donor-centric" fundraising on its way out? While the poll results may not be all that surprising, a close look at the participants behind the responses tell an interesting story. Among those participating in Scott’s poll, the guardians of donor-centered fundraising tend to be older, white men working for large institutions.As I listened to Scott’s reflections on his findings, it is apparent that the comments that followed challenged him to think more critically about what these various ideologies mean and how they inform his work. While desiring to remain true to his values, he’s evidently teachable and pays attention to what those on the other side are saying. Scott strikes me as similar to a lot of the fundraisers that I talk to: not at all about the buzzwords that experts notoriously conjure up for scoring keynotes and contracts, they are after an opportunity to be recognized and admired for meaningful work by their boards, bosses and colleagues down the hall.As always, we are 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 community, email me at jason@responsivefundraising.com  Reminder, you can download Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

My conversation with Alex today raises the question of whether the pandemic was a jumping off opportunity for those who have for stuck on a burning platform for far too long. Throughout the pandemic I have heard several of my guests similarly insist that the pandemic forced critically important changes that were easy to avoid until a crisis of this magnitude came along. Alex explained that for some organizations, the pandemic was an opportunity to demonstrate bravery, increase their tolerance for risk, and persuade key decision makers to do the same.These are the types of insights that Alex and the research team found in between the lines of the latest Charity Benchmark’s report. The findings are essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the effects of the pandemic on the charitable sector and in particularly for those who are in the UK. As Alex shared with me, the pandemic has had a significant impact on long-term thinking and will no doubt accelerate change that was for some organizations long overdue.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And if you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow in your community, let’s schedule a call.#responsivefundraising #unpredictable This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Imagine being brand new on a job just days before the pandemic put nearly the entire world on lock down. What would that experience be like? That’s the question I started with today in my conversation with Gail Carter who has managed to successfully navigate her first year as the Vice President of the University Development at the College of Charleston. I was most intrigued to learn that the lock down didn’t necessarily impede Gail’s acclimating to the new role, and it seems she is well prepared for the road ahead. I appreciated hearing how Gail and her team have successfully adapted to the uncertainty that the pandemic has thrown at us and taken it in stride. I suspect that what we will hear from many fundraisers in the months to come is that the pandemic provided us all an opportunity to rely on tools that we have long had at our disposal but had perhaps not fully embraced. And perhaps we have discovered that, despite geographical limitations, we can create what researchers refer to as perceived proximity.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if your organization is interested in being a host location for the Responsive Fundraising Roadshow this fall please reach out to talk. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

When fundraising is compared to sales, when we insist on pre-determined solicitation amounts, and when everything is all about the ask I’m inclined to ask where is the conversation? Where are we demonstrating our ability to have a meaningful conversation with another human being? As Sandy and I discussed today on the podcast, it concerns me that so few fundraisers have embraced the notion that, as poet and Oxford professor David Whyte says, the conversation is the work. As Sandy evidently has, how about we talk about multi-million dollar conversations rather than multi-million dollar asks?Are we so naive as to think that if everything about the donor can be efficient, predictable and controlled that our boards and bosses won’t expect the same from our side of the table as well? How many of us know how to have genuine, open-ended conversations with a donor that don’t adhere to a script we’ve already memorized in our head? How many of our employers recognize the conversation as an essential aspect of what that their paying us for? Knowing how to have meaningful conversations with a donor ensures that we are recognized and admired for meaningful work.As always, we are 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 community, email me at jason@responsivefundraising.com    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Someone early in my career explained that nonprofits are notorious for operating at least two years behind the rest of the working world when it comes to innovation. This individual insisted that rather than being the early adopters, we’re more inclined to the be the laggards due to our aversion to risk. Contrary to what this person had observed, I have always believed nonprofits should be the innovators rather than the last to adapt to someone else’s bold, new idea; slow to change means missing the chance to change the world. I think we are getting better at this, and perhaps people like Pat are helping us along in our adoption of new ideas. We seem to be leaning into the messy reality that multiple generations are using a multiplicity of channels to give. What Pat wants us to add to that complex mix is the understanding that we’re on the verge of adding a multiplicity of currencies and that, while we generally assume our asset-based donor to have at least paid off their mortgage, now they may have just graduated from college. As some of us hoard millennials and younger generations into our CRM’s, Pat wants us to ask ourselves is what happens when these donors opt to be a crypto-based.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. #responsivefundraising #unpredictable This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

How often do we ask ourselves whether half as much effort might yield the same results? Perhaps these are the types of questions that the pandemic has afforded us the opportunity to ask; and I suspect that a few of us, like Mike Hoffman at the US Naval Academy, have been taking good notes. Today, Theresa and I had the pleasure of talking with Mike who shared with us some of the lessons he and his team have learned in the last year. The first among them, when it comes to fundraising, perhaps less can really mean more.I believe a lot of fundraisers like Mike have paid close attention to what actually worked in their favor and what didn’t matter in the slightest in the midst of the recent pandemic. This experience has allowed us an opportunity to take notice of what actually contributes to our success and, perhaps more importantly, what is really just getting in our way. Enjoying genuine conversations with the half of our donors who actually want to talk with us, developing expertise in-house with our colleagues, and securing significant gifts without traveling across the country are just a few of the things that Mike has taken note of for us to contemplate for the road ahead.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. And, if you’d like to download your free copy of Responsive’s latest edition of Carefully & Critically, just click here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

For over a year and a half, David O’Brien and Matthew Craig conducted 60 interviews with nonprofit leaders around the country; and in their new book, Building Smart Nonprofits, they share their thoughts on a range of subjects from sources of capital, the infamous overhead myth, evaluation of program effectiveness, and the telling our story. David explained to me that many of the leaders they interviewed are re-examining what has and has not worked in their favor and how their boards partner with them to overhaul their funding models. David is the quintessential board member; after a successful forty year career, he found himself with a desire to give back. This motivation landed him on lots of boards; and, despite all his experience and education, he admits that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing. David explained to me that his motivation for the book was two-fold. First, an awareness that the efficacy of funding models based on galas and golf tournaments has peaked, and, much like his own understanding, this awareness happened in real-time. Second, David knew that!nonprofit boards be bridges to smarter organizations if they understood that there were better ways.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to buy a copy of David and Matthew’s new book, click here. If you’d like to download the first edition of Responsive’s Carefully & Critically, click here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com

Fundraising as an interdisciplinary endeavor was where Fraser and I wrapped up our conversation however that was only after tossing around a myriad of topics ranging from US politics to the effects that Walt Disney and Don Draper have in our worldviews. I was grateful to hear Fraser suggest that we bring behavioral economics to the forefront of our thinking and allow it along with a few other disciplines to enhance our thinking in the field. The team at Good Works strikes me as one that can be counted on to think carefully and critically about what their client’s are trying to achieve.This was my second conversation with the team at Good Works and I’m delighted to a part of the line up with both Holly and Fraser this week at Fundraising Day in Ottawa. I’m excited to hear what Fraser will have to say about story telling and, perhaps afterwards, the two of us will begin working on our case for more interdisciplinary thinking in fundraising. This has long been an aspiration of mine and I’m encouraged to hear that Fraser shares this aspiration as well.As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for their support of The Fundraising Talent Podcast.About Our Guest Fraser Green is one of Canada's most well-respected fundraisers. His two passions are listening very carefully to what donors have to say - and telling donors and prospects superb stories. Fraser has authored or co-authored three fundraising books and has been speaking at fundraising conferences in Canada, the United States and Europe for over 20 years. In his spare time, Fraser loves to bend his tired old body into yoga postures, ski too fast, play his guitars and talk way too much for his own good.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fundraisingtalent.substack.com