https://www2.fundsforngos.org/featured/why-do-donors-hate-me/
“Why Do Donors Hate Me?”
OK – so this isn’t me personally asking the question. That’s the title of the article, so that’s where I’m starting from here. I see a lot here that I have observed in many organizations, and I think that it’s an important discussion to have.
I will highlight just a couple here.
- You have low capacity to fundraise.
“If you don’t know the basic techniques of fundraising like proper donor research, engaging and networking, and developing high-quality proposals, you will not succeed.”
I would add here that mechanisms around data collection, donor relationships, communication, volunteer recruitment/utilization/retention and others all have been low in various organizations that I have seen recently. Fundraising is not just writing a proposal – it’s having systems in place to show donors what you are doing, seeking feedback, regular communication and other things.
2. You are not putting in the hard work.
Fundraising is not rocket science, but it does require constant effort. You may be tempted to take the easy way out or focus more on other things. There are no shortcuts in fundraising and you will have to allocate significant time and effort to it to get a grant. You can also not outsource the hard work to someone else/
I think that this is a critical piece. Shortcuts (eg “please fund us because we are a nice organization doing good work and we are nice people”) has left great organizations falling seriously short of what I think that they are capable of in terms of fundraising capacity. Somewhat unfortunately, because this works some of the time, organizations seem to be discouraged from doing the hard work to improve their systems, which perpetuates the problems, leaving them with a bit of funding, and weak systems.
How can a small organization be encouraged to make changes, if taking shortcuts works some of the time, and they don’t realize what they are missing out on by not changing systems and structures?
Thoughts?
