The first decade of my fundraising career, I made many mistakes. Of course, mistakes aren’t necessarily bad if you take the opportunity to learn from them.
Fortunately, I’m older and wiser now, and I hope you can learn from my own missteps. After 25 years of fundraising, I’ve learned a lot and am happy to pass along these tidbits to you.
5 Times I Was Wrong About Fundraising
Below are five examples of times I’ve been wrong about fundraising. Please… learn from my mistakes.
1. Breaking bread with donors
The first meetings I ever had with donors were held over lunch. It just seemed like the right thing to do — to break bread and enjoy a meal as you get to know each other. So each time I scheduled a meeting with a donor, it was centered around breakfast or lunch, and occasionally dinner.
What I quickly learned is that it can be counterproductive to meet a donor for a meal. An important meeting is difficult to do in a restaurant because the wait staff interrupts, you spend time deciding what to order, eating, and stressing over who should pay the bill. Save yourself the headache and hassle and simply meet your donor at their home or office, or over Zoom.
2. Talking too much
When I first started fundraising, I thought it was my job to tell donors everything I knew about the organization. Stories, facts, figures. You name it, I shared it. It didn’t take too long to discover I wasn’t connecting with my donors. After all, I wasn’t having a dialogue — I was conducting a monologue.
Fundraising is about building relationships. That means it needs to go both ways. You need to learn as much about your donors as they learn from you! Ask open-ended questions to be sure you are engaging and including donors in the conversation. If you find yourself making a “pitch” or presentation, it’s a monologue. Stop talking and focus far more on listening.
3. Always meeting in person
Prior to the pandemic, I would have told you that meeting in person is a must! Meeting face-to-face was considered best practice major gift fundraising and I wasn’t about to recommend anything to the contrary.
The pandemic provided (forced?) an opportunity to meet with donors virtually. What I realized was that these online meetings could be even more effective and efficient. Now you don’t necessarily have to fly around to visit donors in person or wait for them to come back from a winter or summer away. Utilizing a combination of in-person and virtual visits is the best of both worlds.
4. Waiting too long to ask
Like many beginner fundraisers, I was hesitant to ask. This meant I delayed asking. I made every excuse in the book. I wasn’t ready. I needed to do more research. I didn’t know the donor well enough.
With age and wisdom, I learned you never truly feel ready. There’s always more research and cultivation you could do. At some point, though, it’s time to ask. Often sooner is better than later, especially if it’s for your annual fund. There will be more opportunities down the road. Don’t wait, ask today.
5. Playing it safe
There’s some inherent risk involved when it comes to fundraising. As a young fundraiser, I played it safe. I didn’t want to look foolish, offend a donor, or make a mistake. So I erred on the side of doing nothing.
Taking calculated risks is part of fundraising as much as it is a part of life. There are many gifts you won’t get, and that’s okay. It’s the ones you don’t ask for that should really sting. Be bold. Be brave. It will pay off.
Lessons Learned, Wisdom Gained
Some of these lessons you can apply right away — for example, you don’t need to take every donor out to lunch. Others you will learn to apply over time — like taking too few risks or asking for a gift sooner rather than later.
If any of my “lessons learned” help to speed your learning curve and improve your fundraising results, I’ll have done my job with this post. Use my wisdom. Learn from it. And exercise a little introspection every once in a while to challenge your own lessons learned. It will help you become a better fundraiser which, in turn, will provide that much more value to your cause.
Have you been wrong about something in the the nonprofit sector? Share your mistakes below so that others may add to their wisdom.
I’ve done all of these! Thanks for re-framing them as opportunities to learn and try something else.
Oh wow–this was exactly the message I needed today. #s 3, 4, and 5 are going to get me through!
These are great, Amy! Thanks. I take a little issue with the in-person bullet. I am a MGO and most of my prospects are older. Zoom is anathema to about 90% of my donors. You can make some progress over the phone, but now that in-person is back–I feel like fundraising is back. But that may be just me. 🙂
Thanks for all you do!
What I’ve learned is that you don’t have to do/offer everything! You should make decisions about adding new donation tools and avenues based on YOUR donors. Best practices aren’t always equitable or make sense depending on your nonprofits industry and donor base.
My biggest mistake:
Making an outrageous ask at the first and only meeting of a potential donor because he lived across the country and I knew I would never meet him again. Obviously, I had no relationship nor context for my inappropriate solicitation.
I would add to Amy’s advice:
Be prepared with numbers. In 2 cases, the donor asked, “Is that really what you NEED?” I had asked for what I thought they would give, and when I laid out how much we “really needed” the gift jumped from my $50K ask to a $100K gift, and in the other case, from my $20K ask to a $100K gift.
Are in-person fundraisers (events) back? Should they be? I would welcome a discussion on their use/effectiveness….
How do you go about qualifying your donor? For example do you inquire if finance decisions are made jointly with a spouse, in which case the invitation for the meeting should include the spouse as well.
Amy – great and relatable lessons learned! To add to the list… I would advise, especially in a first meeting with a potential major donor: ‘take money off the table’ in your mind as you prepare for the visit; remember most people don’t get married on the first date — apply that logic as you get to know someone; play the long game. These are some of my lessons learned…the hard way!