When did professional fundraising become “guru-city”?

Tim insists that the fundraising community has become “guru-city” - chock full of self-declared experts who believe everything they say is golden. Tim believes that there really is no such thing as a fundraising expert and instead of having all the answers, he has designed a company that allows him and his team to be about the business of learning. The team at NextAfter wants to journey alongside their clients in order to understand what the donor is saying to them. Tim describes their team in much the same way that we refer to ours at Responsive as a professional learning community. 

Tim’s approach to learning and expertise evidently informs his opinions about the how and why of messaging that we employ in fundraising. He explained that thanks to the Don Drapers of the world, we have all developed impressive bull-shit detection capabilities which allow us to see right through much of what of what shows up in our inboxes. Tim wants fundraisers to wrestle with what should be glaringly obvious: no matter how shiny and impressive it might appear to us, many of our messages aren’t getting through resulting in a donor response that doesn’t match all the hype. Tim explained that much of the disappointment that we encounter is a consequence of having allowed our marketing impulses to get in the way of our ability to demonstrate that real human beings are hitting the send button. 

As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email me for more information. For those who would like learn more about the NextAfter, visit their website here.