Engage in Your Greatness

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I started reading The Soul of Money, by Lynne Twist.  I’ve really only just begun the book, so I cannot comment on it as a whole.  So far, nothing she has said is radical or new, but she does have a lovely way of making what we know is true sound new.  For The Soul of Money is the story of her journey of discovering these “truths.”

While I had wanted to stay away from the whole topic of fundraising, as it is getting all of the coverage it needs, and then some, as it does every year at this time.  There are the stories encouraging people to give in general, with tips on how to decide where to give, and the headlines warning of dire outcomes for nonprofits if we all don’t dig deep into our pockets.  And more.

With that as background, I share with you two of the truisms Lynne Twist reveals.  In her role as a senior executive and major fundraiser for The Hunger Project, whose mission is to end world hunger, Ms. Twist traveled the world.  Five years on in this effort, she visited for the first time what was then called Bombay (now Mumbai) and was confronted with a reality of hunger that even she found staggering and overwhelming.

Along with other lessons learned, understanding hunger as it existed in the “world capitol of hunger” invigorated her fundraising—her message, her passion, her urgency.  First truism:  we are stronger better fundraisers when we have a (visceral) understanding of and connection to the cause we represent.  The flip side, which is equally important, is that we are more likely to give when that cause comes alive and is made real for us.  There is, however, a fine line between making something come alive and being tawdry, between helping someone to reach that visceral understanding and exploitation.

Sadly, though, there is a gigantic chasm between 100% of the appeals I’m receiving these days and anything that is getting me excited, tapping, let alone assaulting, my sense of responsibility or compelling me to want to be, albeit a small, part of a solution.  How could so many have missed the mark so dramatically?  This truism is not one that comes out in advanced fundraising 3000, but rather is the very fundament of the most basic fundraising primer.  How is it so routinely ignored?  How are we not making sure that every fundraiser—from the staff who bear this responsibility in whole or in part of their job to the volunteers who do this as part of their job as a board member or out of love for the mission—can explain the mission in compelling verbal pictures that convey a sense of urgency and drive me to one to help now?

The second truism that Ms. Twist puts quite eloquently is one that the primer says more basically:  do not deny someone the opportunity to be part of the solution.  Should we ask our volunteers for money?  Never deny someone the opportunity to be part of the solution!  Should we ask our clients?  By not asking you are denying someone the opportunity to be part of the solution!

Having learned this many decades ago, it is one of the first messages I try to convey to hesitant and resistant board members who view asking people for money as an imposition—not just on them, but also on the one being asked.  They manufacture all kinds of false impediments to save themselves from this imposition, when the reality is that in fundraising, you are offering someone a gift!  As Ms. Twist posits for all to read, “… rather than feeling that fundraising was a matter of twisting arms for a donation or playing on emotions to manipulate money from contributors, it became for me an arena in which I was able to create an opportunity for people to engage in their greatness.”  That, ladies and gentlemen, is a helluva gift!

Although I am but a quarter through this book, one refrain is already  running through my mind:   “This would be a good read for board members shirking their fundraising responsibilities.”   Have any of them on your holiday gift list?