Do the Word

Just received the latest copy of Fundraising Success magazine in my mailbox today. It’s a publication I always enjoy reading, even though my perspective frequently differs pretty significantly from theirs. Two of my favorite blog writers, Katya Andresen from Network For Good and Jeff Brooks of Donor Power Blog write for the pub, and Margaret Battistelli’s Editor’s Note is always a good read.

But I was absolutely, postively heartbroken by the cover photo.

It shows a cowboy riding a horse, getting ready to toss a lasso.

The caption?

Fundraising 101: Acquisition

Part 2 of our four-part series on fundraising basics focuses on best practices for rounding up new donors via direct mail and online (lasso optional).

Lasso optional?

Nonprofit = cowboy?

Which would mean…

Donor/champion = ???

I felt literal physical pain in my stomach at the idea of thinking of champions as cattle.

Cattle rounded up by nonprofit cowboys, no less.

You can see the cover photo here.

(I disagree with the content as well, of course. In Transformational Giving, we talk about recruiting champions for a cause, not acquiring donors for a donor file. Moreover and more radically, the responsibility for recruiting new P-level champions for the cause belongs to your O-level champions, not your organization. We’re going to be detailing this exciting strategy in the upcoming free Mission Increase Foundation Marketing Your Ministry workshops and labs in August and September. These fill up quickly, so make sure to register early and often.)

I am normally a peace-lovin’ (embarrassingly) conflict-avoidin’ cowboy myself, but in this case I decided to send an email expressing my concerns in a nice and polite way to Margaret, the editor in chief.

She wrote back the very same day with an even nicer and politer reply:

Eric…

Thank you so much for taking the time to write. I appreciate your gracious note and comments about the cover… you make a very good point. Of course, we didn’t mean to imply the whole donor/cattle connection, but obviously the cover was open to interpretation.

If you don’t mind, I would like to run your comment either on the FS homepage, which will soon have a “What You Are Saying” section or in the magazine itself.

Thank you again — both for reading FS and for writing. I always love hearing from readers, and a fresh persepctive on things we’ve done in the magazine is always, always welcome.

All the best!

Margaret

Score one for we cattle!

We get letters! (OK, emails.) Here’s a particularly good one from Jo Lisa Blossom:

We just attended the TG training and were thinking about ‘highlighting a Champion’ in our newsletters and email updates. I was envisioning meeting with them, getting to know them and why they give (or go) to our cause and then writing up an article with a picture, quotes, etc. This seems like it would encourage TG principle # 7- ‘The relationship between champion and champion is as important as the relationship between champion an organization.’ Other champions would be encouraged and so would the one highlighted. I intend to make the focus what the Lord is doing in that person’s life to lead them in the cause but is this lifting someone ‘up’ besides Christ? Is ‘highlighting a champion’ a good idea?

Quick answer, LJB: Absolutely.

The New Testament consistently holds up imitation as a key component of the discipleship process. Paul urges the Corinthians to imitate him in 1 Corinthians 4:16. The author of Hebrews says (in 6:12), ‘We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.’ (Hebrews 13:7 and 3 John 1:11 are two more great imitation verses, by the way.)

In newsletters, one of the key components of success is writing in such a way that the reader can identify with the subject. In too many of our articles, we write about what our staff is doing or what the recipients of our ministry are doing. The problem with that is, the reader can’t seem himself or herself in that picture. S/he may be inspired, heartstring-tugged, or fascinated. But none of these are central to the New Testament process of discipleship.

Imitation is.

So yes, highlight a champion for the purpose of encouraging imitation. And make sure to choose one who is both giving and going, since you want to hold up individuals to imitate who are ‘all in’.

Here are some ways to do it creatively:

1. Along with the interview, put the champions’ P/E/O chart in the article. Explain what the P/E/O chart is, and invite the reader to download a blank one they can complete for themselves (or call the ministry for help, of course).
2. Avoid asking general questions that result in the usual expected answers. Ask questions that are intentionally designed to draw out answers that lead to growth for the reader. For example, avoid asking, ‘So why did you get involved?’ Everyone reading the newsletter is already involved at a basic level (else they wouldn’t be holding the newsletter in their hands), so that question is not likely to lead to much of anything other than prurient interest. Ask questions like: Do you see yourself as a P, an E, or an O? What were the steps that brought you the most growth? Were you ever tempted to give up? How did God grow you through that temptation?
3. Make sure to include a single, specific action step at the end. If you only profile the champion, readers will think to themselves, ‘That’s very nice.’ Instead, make sure to end by saying, ‘Take the champion challenge! [Champion’s name] said that what took him to the next level of understanding, commitment, and passion was writing a letter to the government of China on behalf of a persecuted believer [or whatever the growth step is that the champion identified]. Here’s your opportunity to take that same step. Go to the website and etc etc…’

Thanks again for your question, JLB. Make sure to send us a link when you post your champion’s profile online!

Even as I traveled to Phoenix to do the day-long Transformational Giving seminar yesterday, I should have been fixated on the joy of having been able to do the seminar in shirt sleeves rather than a suit (way to go, PHX! Our largest crowd and the best weather so far!)

Instead, I’ve been inexplicably fixated this week on David Meerman Scott’s assertion that what we’re all really after is ‘attention for our companies’.

My final word on the discussion, drawn from my truly enjoyable time with Phoenix folks yesterday, comes from Willie Cheng, author of Doing Good Well: What Does (and Does Not) Make Sense in the Nonprofit World.

Cheng contends that there is something nonprofit organizations should want more than attention.

Extinction.

According to Cheng, ‘the ultimate aim of a charity is to be extinct’:

Individual charities are set up to solve specific societal issues, and hence should be working themselves out of a job by finding the solutions.

It’s modulated slightly differently than we would say it (in TG, we’d say that the role of institutions is to build up God’s people and then become extinct when God’s people reach maturity in the cause), but the principle is the same: nonprofits are intended to be nonpermanent. They’re designed to seek extinction, not attention.

What would happen if your nonprofit set a ten year limit on achieving its purpose, at which point it would automatically dissolve?

Or, in a more TG vein, what would happen if your nonprofit set a ten year limit on transmitting its purpose so fully to its champions and partners that it no longer needed to exist?

Perhaps the animosity between churches and nonprofits would decline if nonprofits declared and practiced their impermanence.