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Is your job really to raise money?
Og Mandino, author of The Greatest Salesman in the World wrote:
“The only certain means of success is to render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be.”
His book, written in 1968, is about a poor camel boy who achieves a life of abundance. It’s still popular today and serves as a philosophical guide for salesmanship and success.
What you can take away from his story is the following:
– Your job as a fundraiser is really to “help others undertake consequential acts of kindness and generosity” (according to Jerold Panas).
– Your job is to provide others with opportunities to make a difference in the world.
– Your job is to facilitate the process of giving money away.
– Your job is to show people how they can be remembered by others.
– Your job is to help people honor or memorialize others.
– Your job is to encourage people to be philanthropic.
– Your job is to help people find meaning in their lives.
If you disagree, then I think you might be in the wrong business.
If you agree but your boss disagrees, then you might have the wrong boss and you probably should find another one at a different organization.
Money gets raised after you provide value to your organization’s supporters and make them feel good!
Render more and better service than is expected of you and you’ll raise more money.
You can take that to the bank!
Related Posts:
>>Engagement Fundraising in 7 Simple Bullet-Points
>>Why you should worry less about reducing overhead and more about delivering value
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Get the book!
Feeling like your job is getting harder because donor expectations have changed and competition for the charitable dollar is growing?
Finding that the old orthodoxies and conventions espoused by so-called experts in online echo-chambers and at conferences don’t work anymore?
Want to help more people make impact by facilitating their acts of philanthropy but feel like too many obstacles keep getting in your way?
Then this book is for you.
Engagement Fundraising was developed from the perspective of a donor who discovered firsthand that the impersonal, spray-and-pray approaches of his beloved charity were not only offensive but also wasteful and ineffective. So he took action. And now, you can too.
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