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mackenzian

Keisha E. McKenzie | communication | systems | social good

abundance

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Three ways to preserve the innocence of giving

"Preserve the innocence in giving. When misanthropy dresses up as philanthropy, when hatred or fear motivate funding or aid, fundraisers need to protect their own innocence and help boards and donors to do the same." —@mackenzian

Ever received a hand-made card from a child? The drawing might be bright and the handwriting might be inscrutable, but neither of those things are why we display children’s notes on our fridges or treasure the gifts they make.

There’s an innocence in the act of open-hearted giving and receiving, and that innocence is worth preserving in professional fundraising as well as between adults and children.

Keep three things in mind as you connect people and organizations who have resources with the other people, organizations, and causes that need them.

1. Assume abundance.Over the last several years, a lot of people have suffered financially. Some have lost long-held jobs or been unable to find steady work at all. For so many, the decade has been a season of scarcity, and so talk of abundance seems alien.

But an assumption of abundance is especially important now. Those of us who didn’t come from wealthy backgrounds and still aren’t flush get to practice holding the energy of plenty as we work with resources on behalf of causes we care about. We practice not centering board fears about the bank balance or worrying that good work won’t find advocates.

Be willing to guide program leaders in breaking projects into more fund-able increments, or revising projects in ways that leverage other resources the team already has. In the context of abundance, and assuming that change is about the long game and not the short-term, there’s no reason to be inflexible about the next step!

2. Remember why you’re raising resources, and don’t get distracted. The foundation we use for fundraising campaigns, invitation letters, and appeals has to be able to bear the love for humankind that philanthropy is all about.

It’s possible to raise a lot of money on other grounds—hatred of Others or fear of what they might be doing in the big wide world—and both crowdfunding platforms and traditional fundraising programs do that all the time. But if you love the cause and you want it to run smoothly for a long time, why fuel it that way?

A world that works for all won’t run on misanthropy, so don’t plan on using it to drive your fundraising. Be willing to design resource initiatives around the outcomes and representations of people that you want to see more of, and don’t allow desperation or fear to seep into your resource-raising work.

3. Stay grounded: people trump the numbers. Development can be grueling because it’s essential: resources allow people who care a lot to serve others and make change, and without resources that simply doesn’t happen. Because balance sheets are tangible but our assumptions about and vision for the world usually aren’t, it can be tempting to focus on things we can see and count: how many dollars a campaign yielded; whether a pre-launch deadline was met; how many members served ever give back.

But people have to trump the numbers: a non-profit organization converts in-flowing financial and human resources into out-flowing service, programming, and content for the sake of the community and wider society. It’s not about activity for the sake of activity or income for the sake of income. Whenever that focus and balance is lost, we risk losing the simple heart that keeps staff and donors rightly oriented to each other and to their common mission.

If you’re ever tempted to lose the light spirit of giving, take a cue from Banana Kid. This home video isn’t captioned, but the star teaches us all we need to learn through his body language and openness.

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Abundance and Webs of Influence

Did you miss Alisa Valdes‘ article on fundraising and culture? Read it before you read on.

Professional fundraising is one of those fields in which people’s latent beliefs about money and resources surface very, very quickly, either in support of an initiative or in ways that leave it isolated. There’s just no way to deal with funds, budgets, needs, and asks without revealing whether you yourself live in a limited world or an abundant universe.

Learning about Abundance

When a social justice non-profit invited me to step in as development director a few years ago, one of the first things I did was talk to Leanne Carlson who runs a year-round philanthropy institute for professional fundraisers. Most of Leanne’s regular participants work full-time in the medical system and foundation sectors, so why’d I pick her? I’m not a medic; nor do I work with an institutional foundation. But Leanne does fantastic work nurturing awareness of generosity in others, the philanthropy institute’s tagline is The Abundant Future, and a premise of abundance and supportive possibility is what I wanted to guide my work with and through my non-profit.

There is no true scarcity—only disconnection of resources. We live in a sea of possible partners and allies. Yet we often engage and capture the imagination of only a tiny portion. Many of those who could bring resources, intelligence, and energy are right around us. But we must learn to engage these allies in new ways. — Leanne Carlson

Across issues and specialties, social justice non-profits often suffer from a lens of lack: “We can’t do that because we don’t have the budget… If people gave more, we could do so much more.” The problem with that kind of negativity is that over time it seeps into leadership letters, undermining relationships with donors (really: you don’t like guilt trips, so why would your prospective donors?), and hindering how creatively organizational staff leverage the resources and relationships they already have to hand.

Where Messaging Comes From

We run our default messages about how the world works because of our earliest training and experiences. Our families of origin, our ethnic groups and religious subcultures, our nation’s storylines, our educational environment—all of these shape our working model of the world and what’s possible for “people like us” in it. Many people go life-long without challenging their or their family’s working model, but fortunately just as many people do question the assumptions they hold as adults. There are alternatives to a default of scarcity!

If, like Alisa and me, you’re rewriting some old scripts around resources and possibilities, consider seeking out an institute of abundance-oriented peers to support you. You don’t have to join a formal program, though I’ve found that beneficial myself. You might also link up with a more informal peer circle like the one I’ll be launching this March. The style isn’t that important: what matters most is the group’s foundational premises and how deeply members are committed to the logic of abundance and the open and supportive connections that flow from it.

Bottom Line: Create Well

You run the messages you run now because of the web of influences that taught them to you early on. While you can’t scrub your mind of what your earliest networks taught you, you can participate in alternative webs of influence, adopt different premises for the opportunities you take, and reroute your everyday orientation to the world you live in.

The field is wide open. Create well!