The Fundraising Talent Podcast

How can sector leaders improve the donor experience?

David and Sam are both members of The Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s Supporter Experience Committee. This network of fundraisers is dedicated to identifying best practices and providing thought leadership aimed at ensuring quality supporter experiences. In today’s podcast conversation, David and Sam challenge us to ask whether less homogenous and less industrialist fundraising practices might improve the fundraising experience for those on both sides of the exchange. Many of David and Sam’s observations beg the question of why so many charities remain content to squeeze enormous populations of donors into a system that assumes that everyone shares the same motivations for giving.   
Throughout our conversation, David and Sam repeatedly brought us back to the opportunity they see for sector leaders willing to make changes that might turn around some of the troubling trends and remedy some of the mistakes we make over and over again. We explored some of the insights that these leaders might glean from organizations like BLM and Extinction Rebellion as well as the response to the conflict in Ukraine and the University of Tennessee’s crowdfunding campaign for new goalposts.
As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.
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We’re trying something new. The Butterfly Effect, our new publication on Substack, is where we make sense of the ideas and opinions that inform our consulting practices at Responsive Fundraising. Every week we will guarantee for our subscribers a thoughtful, long form article that will challenge how we think about contemporary fundraising practices. We would be delighted if you would subscribe. 

Are fundraisers becoming more discerning about where they can thrive?

Alex isn’t kidding when he says it seems like The Chronicle of Philanthropy has been retelling the same story about disillusioned fundraisers for a long time. Those of us who have been around for a while are well aware of the fact that, at any given time, at least half of the fundraisers out there are looking for another job and that very few boards and bosses have come to a consensus about how fundraising really works. As of late this familiar story has zeroed in on how poorly prepared some employers are with making hiring decisions and how often they miss opportunities by relying on an arduous interview process.
Alex believes hiring managers need a wake up call; and, on the flip side, he insists that candidates need to know how to see the red flags that distinguish between an job where you’re being set up to fail rather than given an opportunity to thrive. For example, Alex wants fundraisers to listen more closely to whether an employer characterizes the work as exchanging gifts with those who share a genuine and meaningful relationship with our organization; or does the employer believe that the donor is merely a passive consumer and an opportunity to close a quick deal. 
I was grateful to hear that Alex had taken my recent recommendation to read Benjamin Barber’s Consumed which likens our consumer society to that of a child whose impulsive behavior prevents them from achieving their full potential. As I have said many times before, this is where I believe fundraising finds itself today: in the midst of its messy adolescence and unable to discern between what’s really working in its favor versus getting in its way. I am confident that as we develop a collective willingness to wrestle with tough questions of the sort that Alex and I did today, and as donors are afforded opportunities to play active, citizen-like roles with the organizations they support, our sector and society as a whole will reap the benefits that accompany mature, sustainable relationships.
As always, we are grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.
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We’re trying something new. The Butterfly Effect, our new publication on Substack, is where we make sense of the ideas and opinions that inform our consulting practices at Responsive Fundraising. Every week we will guarantee for our subscribers a thoughtful, long form article that will challenge how we think about contemporary fundraising practices. We would be delighted if you would subscribe. 

Are nonprofit leaders designing resilience into their organizations?

Stuart wants us to carefully think about whether we’re designing resilience into our organizations and, if not, ask ourselves if difficult and uncertain times are really to blame for some of our financial misfortunes. I have been an admirer of Stuart’s work for quite some time. His research begs the question of whether our scholars have done more harm than good by borrowing as many theories as they have from the marketplace. Stuart’s “Nonprofit First” thinking insists that we should construct theory from what has emerged within our sector rather than from somewhere else. 
During today’s conversation, Stuart and I unraveled how nonprofit organizations often come about with the help of government subsidies only to later become increasingly dependent on charitable giving. As the government fades, many nonprofit leaders implicitly assume the donor will step up to the plate and play their role similar to how the government did. What these leaders miss is that these are fundamentally different types of relationships, distinct types of exchanges, all functioning in accordance with completely different playbooks. Stuart would insist that designing for resilience starts with knowing how to make these kinds of distinctions.
Looking ahead, we have quite a line-up of conversations set for January centered around the notion of citizenship and what it looks like when our donors insist on something more than the passive, consumer-like role to which our organizations have grown accustomed. If you would like to be a guest on The Fundraising Talent Podcast in 2023, email me anytime; our listeners would be delighted to hear your big ideas and bold opinions.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.

What effect will the FTX Bankman-Fried fiasco have on fundraising?

I was grateful to Alex, co-founder of The Giving Block, for ensuring that we add a timely conversation about the FTX-Bankman Fried collapse to The Fundraising Talent Podcast’s library of conversations. Shortly after this story started making headlines, I appreciated seeing that Alex and Pat offered their take on the situation and assured nonprofit leaders that the effect of this fiasco would be minimal for most charities and their crypto-minded donors. This was perhaps welcome news for those who, like myself, are only beginners at making sense of how cryptocurrency fits in our fundraising efforts. What effect all this will have on effective altruism, Bankman-Fried’s ideological framework of choice, is yet to be seen. 
Alex wants us to remind ourselves that the failure of an individual or an entity is not the failure of entire industry. Alex explained that FTX played a very small role in Crypto Philanthropy and he insisted that this will not slow down the growth of this industry. Alex explained that twice as many nonprofit organizations are accepting cryptocurrency donations through their platform than were a year ago, and every month the team at The Giving Block help hundreds of charities design and launch their crypto-philanthropy programs.
Listeners, please forgive the echo for about the first 7 minutes. We were able to clean that up so as to ensure a painless listen thereafter. 
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.

Are fundraisers creating better roles for their donors to play?

As a leader in Seattle’s arts community and a college professor, Jackson is just getting started. Southern Theatre magazine has recently named Jackson among a group of rising leaders who are paving the way for the future of fundraising. What I most appreciated about today’s conversation was that, while Jackson is explicit in his desire to do away with fundraising’s narrow focus on the top three percent, he’s evidently chosen not to be envious and make wealth-bashing part of his repertoire. Jackson isn’t typecasting anyone.
In today’s conversation, Jackson challenges fundraisers to check themselves before they set out to raise money. He wants fundraisers to think carefully about their own relationship with money and wealth and to examine how they go about engaging with and soliciting the support of their donors. Jackson wants us to ask ourselves whether we’re creating opportunities for our donors to be better people and whether we’re creating experiences aimed at creating more than mere transactions. Like so many of my guests in the last couple of years, Jackson has high aspirations and wants to see qualitative improvements in how we carry out our work.
Much of our conversation was about how fundraisers can best steward relationships with their donors. For example, Jackson described the opportunity that nonprofits have to curate meaningful experiences for those who began their life with very little and then, late in life, found themselves with more than they could have ever imagined. Jackson wants us to envision our organizations not only as places for raising awareness and providing services but also as places for demonstrating solidarity and expressing gratitude.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.

Why are nonprofits afraid of their own obsolescence?

Today’s podcast conversation offers a tough pill that I suspect some of us aren’t willing to swallow. Jim wants us to wrestle with the question of why today’s nonprofits are afraid of their own obsolescence. Instead of planning to eventually close, Jim wants to know why, for all intents and purposes, our organizations collectively make up what has become a growth industry. Are we willing to admit to ourselves that raising money for problems that never get solved is big business? 
Jim’s tough pill reminds me of the “Shirky Principle” which says that institutions will preserve a problem to which they are the solution. When we think about our fundraising efforts, have our donors become co-conspirators in ignoring root problems and not telling the truth? Are we placating our donors with easy-to-fund problems with which we believe they will be more comfortable and of which they can easily make sense? Jim wants to us to find the courage to solicit support for real solutions that are complex, difficult to understand, and might even make us all feel uncomfortable.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.
 

How does unseen diversity impact a fundraiser’s journey?

My conversation today with Jillian was a great reminder to me of what I have always believed to be one of the most meaningful aspects of nonprofit work: the opportunity to create community around common struggles. For most of our lives, Jillian and I have shared a common obstacle that can interrupt our daily lives in life-threatening ways. 99% of the time, our seizure disorders are completely manageable, and we can exist in the world just like other able-bodied citizens. Unfortunately, in a matter of seconds and without warning, our lives and the lives of anyone in our care can be at great risk. Discovering that we shared this common thread in our stories is what initiated today’s podcast conversation.
Jillian insists that the best fundraisers are always curious, authentic, and able to bring their whole selves to their work. This is what Jillian demonstrated today; she showed up, shared a part of her story that no one would be able to make sense of without the benefit of a conversation like this one, and she came to be curious and share an interest in learning about the stories of other colleagues who share similar experiences. The question Jillian raised was how unseen diversity impacts a fundraisers journey. And furthermore, how can our professional community demonstrate a commitment to listening to and understanding the aspects of each other’s story that exist below the surface?
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.
 

What if the gift economy informed more of our fundraising practices?

My conversation today with Adam was both timely and inspiring. Adam wants us to see how the logic of the gift affords a more holistic, long-term, and collaborative perspective where the focus can be on the quality of relationships rather than making comparisons of one’s contribution to another. Adam explained how he has produced programming at Jewish Studio Project that, rather than using the traditional fee-for-service approach, relies on the gift economy. He explained that everyone contributes what they can and recognizes that they are there to give just as much as they are there to receive.
With this logic in mind, Adam shared how it has informed their approach to Giving Tuesday. Rather than just ensuring that as many gifts as possible flow in their direction, they have sought out opportunities to model gratitude and extend generosity to other organizations. For this year’s Giving Tuesday campaign, the Jewish Studio Project is encouraging their community to give to Queer Asterisk, a Colorado-based organization that is providing counseling services to those who have been effected by the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.

Should fundraisers let their board members off the hook?

Stephanie Schwartz is the Founder and CEO of Little Bean Group, a fundraising consultancy in Washington, DC. Stephanie loves to work with leaders who want to dream big and who recognize that fundraising is often the path by which their dreams come to fruition. Stephanie affords her clients the benefit of extensive experience in both education and advocacy. In today’s conversation, Stephanie challenges us to change our expectations of board members and not necessarily, as I often say, “letting them off the hook” but thinking strategically about where they can most effectively contribute to the overall fundraising effort.
Stephanie and I agreed that today’s nonprofit leaders are wise to distinguish between the ways and means that a fundraiser can shine versus where board members have similar opportunities. Stephanie wants us to grasp that, for the majority of our board members, this means finding ways to be engaged in fundraising that don’t necessitate an ask. It also means abandoning the myriad of overly prescriptive responsibilities that we often assign them. Experience has taught many of us that these formulas often translate into less than desirable experiences for our board members and a lot of frustration and disappointment for ourselves.
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.

Conversation w/ the editors of Collecting Courage: Part Two

This is the second in a two-part conversation with the editors of Collecting Courage: Joy, Pain, Freedom, Love which has been described as “an honest, raw account” of the experiences of 14 Black charity leaders and fundraisers in North America. In response to the project’s success, the editors are convening readers who want to continue on the journey towards racial reconciliation and collective healing in our sector.
Nneka, Nicole, and Camila recently joined me to discuss both their book and The Path to Action Conference later this month. In this segment, Camila helps us understand the myriad of obstacles that she encountered early in her career despite having readied herself as well as she did. Camila explains how what she accomplished was “diminished, disregarded or discarded” by a sector that she genuinely wanted to be believe in and to which she wanted to remain committed.
If these conversations stirred you as they have me, I would encourage you to accept the invitation that has been extended to us; for those who want to be co-conspirators in the fight for racial justice in our sector, for those who want to be equipped with the knowledge and tools that are required, and for those who want to make sense of their roles and responsibilities in ensuring greater freedom for everyone, register here. 
As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.