#170 | What if we’ve got the essence of fundraising all wrong?

I wonder if we’ve got the essence of fundraising all wrong? As Riccardo shared his story with Theresa and me, it occurred to me that it was the conversations that most characterized his gift-giving experiences at MIT. Maybe we would do well to consider that the essence of great fundraising is a conversation; or, to be more precise, a series of regular and ongoing conversations.

We all know that it’s become quite cliche to suggest that fundraising is about relationships; however, I believe we’re all deliberately ambiguous about what that means for fear that we will be found a fraud. If conversation is the essence of great fundraising then perhaps our concern should be the quality of those conversations. Let’s be real: absent genuine conversation, what is a relationship anyway.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Responsive's 2020 recovery plan is now available for download here. We are very grateful to Jennifer Harris, Andrew Olsen, Theresa Lee, as well as our friends at OneCause and iWave for contributing to this free resource. As always, we are very grateful to OneCause for being our sponsor.