Not what I wanted to write about

For 13 years, I’ve sent this newsletter out mostly monthly though often combining July and August into one summer issue.  This year, I decided to skip October.  The election and COVID meant that my usually manageable inbox was jammed all day, every day. I spent as much time deleting emails as I spent reading them.  Why, I thought, add to the cacophony?  I decided that I would put the newsletter together and then have it drop in the days just after November 3rd.  So as I write, I don’t know the results of the election, though I am holding my breath and hoping for the best.

The best, I might add, to my way of thinking.  One of the hard lessons I’ve been learning is that my good isn’t necessarily your good.  What matters to me my not matter at all to you. Indeed, over the past 4 years, one of the shocks I’ve had to absorb was that just because I like someone, socialize with them, think they are smart (it was tempting to write “thought” here instead of think, but I’ll stick with current tense), and then discover our politics are at opposite ends of the spectrum.  Really?  You like what so-and-so is doing?  You are against this thing that I hold dear?  

Of course, over the years, I’ve had friends who were yin to my yang (or vice versa), but things were less contentious; more civil.  I dearly hope we can get back to that.  I am tired of all this anger.

But it’s not that I wanted to write about.  At least not in this newsletter.  This newsletter started as a blog that the person who actually started it cleverly called Too Busy to Fundraise. She went on to different things, and I inherited the URL.   For many years, I blogged once or twice a week on that site, and also sent out a newsletter.  A couple of years ago, due to a misunderstanding when I redid my website, the two got combined into one, and the separate TBTF site went away.  I decided to go with that flow—more people subscribed to my newsletter than to the blog, and many many of the readers were the same.  

But that’s not what I wanted to write about either.  TBTF was my segue into the fact that still, after all these years, too many nonprofits are still too busy to fundraise (but not too busy to cry over lack of funds).  And when they do fundraise, their focus is on what they care about; what they think is best.

For years, “donor-centric” fundraising has been in the spotlight.  Donor-centric means finding out about your donors’ interests and what they need to accomplish through their philanthropy.  I still think there is value in this.  And I think there has to be more.

We need to think about our clients and what they need.  And we must learn more about our communities and what they need.  And then we must figure out how to serve those sometimes-conflicting needs.

There were a lot of “ands” in that paragraph, deliberately so.  “And” embraces, includes.  We all need to be more inclusive—of what we read, who we communicate with, who we serve, and who we ask to serve with us.

In a roundtable discussion in October, Dr. Allen Lipscombe led a session of health and human service nonprofit leaders about anti-racism.  As we talked about changing cultures at nonprofits, the issue of the homogeneity of boards (and leadership) and of donors came up.  Until we stop seeing philanthropy as something white people do and Blacks do not, we can never change our sector.  And while there certainly are Blacks and other People of Color who have wealth, we need to stop thinking of philanthropy as a rich person’s arena.  As the recent political campaigns should have taught us, a lot of small gifts can go a very long way and getting more people to join in with you and feel an ownership of the work you do the more inclusive our organizations and our sector will be.  For too long we have had an us/them attitude:  those a (wealthy, powerful people) who give to us (poor, downtrodden, at risk).  Instead, it should be we—we who care, who want to make the world better.  And we come from all walks of life and beliefs; we are all ethnicities and races; rich and poor and in between.  What we share is a need to connect and to ensure that everyone has an opportunity for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.