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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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