#74 | How much of contemporary fundraising practice was designed by control freaks?

One of the pleasures of writing a book is the network of like-minded individuals that emerges once it gains traction. Shawn Cote is certainly one of those individuals whom I have enjoyed getting to know over the last year and am grateful for the conversations that we’ve had both on and offline. I am delighted to have him as a guest this week on the podcast.

Shawn attended my seminar in Worcester in early May and agreed to follow up with me afterwards to process some of the ideas that I presented. It is apparent that the three lanes made a lot of sense to him, and he enthusiastically introduced the concept to his boss. Shawn has been contemplating the foreseeable challenges and opportunities that arise as control of lane one is relinquished to high-capacity volunteers, he begins to focus his time in lane two, and he encourages his boss to operate primarily in lane three.

As I shared with Shawn, some of my listeners may be surprised to hear the evolution of my opinion about GivingTuesday. I’m fascinated with how Henry Timms and Jeremy Heimans describe this phenomenon as an example of New Power and relinquishing control to the crowd. As envious as we may be with it’s outcomes, I’m not sure that most nonprofits understand how much control has been given up in order for GivingTuesday to accomplish all that it has.

If you’d like to learn more about my four frameworks, click here.