fundraising's messy adolescence

Someone said to me this week that there is a cohort of younger thought leaders in who are being quite critical of those who championed our profession in the past. While my friend didn’t explicitly say that I was one of the accused, I won’t attempt to deny my own tendency to be critical and, at times, more about the problems than the solutions. As disappointing as this behavior might be, it is too be expected of a maturing profession. This tendency to criticize and find fault with those who came before is yet another signal of the adolescence that fundraising is navigating its way through. It may be helpful for all of us to remember that every profession, just like individuals, must navigate these messy years.

I, myself, am not known for being particularly agreeable with anyone, regardless of whether they are older or younger than me. That said, I also know better than to always agree with myself, routinely finding places where an earlier thought or idea wasn’t quite as on the mark as it should have been. As contrarian as I might be, the willingness to be contrary with myself seems to be keeping me out of a lot of trouble lately.

It seems that every conversation that I have lately is with fundraising professionals who are feeling the pains of a profession that is growing up. Whether I am talking to a young person who is just beginning their career or someone who is several decades in and contemplating what they have accomplished, everyone is thinking more critically about what it is we are doing, looking back on past mistakes, and anxiously pondering what must change in order for us to succeed in the future. It seems that a glance at what’s happening in other fields might be helpful in understanding where we, as a profession, are.

In November 2012, Robert Phillips shocked the PR industry when he resigned as EMEA president and CEO of Edelman, the world’s largest PR company. News of Phillips’ resignation came just two weeks after it was announced that he’d been tasked with a global initiative to ensure the firm remained at the forefront of public relations innovation. In his book, Trust Me, PR is Dead, Phillips describes a conversation he had a month earlier with his friend and boss Richard Edelman.

Phillips shared strong concerns about their industry: their unwillingness to embrace data, a preference for generalists rather than mastery, and a focus on corporate growth instead of the development of the skill sets and intelligence necessary to better serve their clients. Despite his agreement with Phillips’ concerns, Edelman said their model couldn’t change; it would take too long and cause too much disruption. Phillips writes: “. . . [I]t was there and then I decided to quit. I could not be a hypocrite. I felt like an imposter.”[1]

Just a few months before Phillips’ resignation, Bill Lee had declared in the Harvard Business Review, “Traditional marketing—including advertising, public relations, branding and corporate communications—is dead.” Lee warned that many working in these fields were unaware that they were operating within a dead paradigm.[2]

More recently, Ken Burnett, the author of Relationship Fundraising and marketer turned fundraising expert, concluded after several decades that marketing was not a good fit for fundraising.[3] Ken is one of those champions of fundraising whose expertise originated in other domains and who is evidently asking some tough questions.

Whether or not we agree with some of these bold assertions about PR, marketing and our own profession is not nearly important as our willingness to recognize where we collectively find ourselves today. The fundraising profession is only now beginning to grow up and has many years of additional learning ahead of it. If marketing and PR are experiencing a mid-life crisis, the fundraising profession is a younger, stubborn sibling who is still working itself through high school. Where ever we find oursleves, it seems especially important that we admire and apprecite those who went before us rather than throw stones. In the end, I think that. . .

Fundraising is a maturing profession, but one that is increasingly controversial. Media reports of poor practice have contributed to concerns about the integrity of fundraisers and the uses which have been made of the resources they raise. As a result, a consensus now exists among senior figures in the industry about the changes that are required. Technique is no longer enough. Many more of the next generation of practitioners must be capable of considered reflection, organizational and inter-organizational strategic thinking, and values-based leadership.[4]

Thoughtful Fundraising, editors Jill Mordaunt and Rob Paton

[1] Phillips, R. Trust Me, PR Is Dead (Random House, UK, 2015).

[2] Lee, B. “Marketing Is Dead” Harvard Business Review (2012).

[3] Burnett, K. “Marketing Was a Mistake” http://www.kenburnett.com/Blog54Marketingwasamistake.htm. Accessed November, 8, 2017.

[4] Thoughtful Fundraising: Concepts, Issues, and Perspectives, ed. Mourdaunt, J., Paton, R. (New York: Routledge, 2007).

Adapted from The War for Fundraising Talent.