It’s been happening for some time – the individual donor is behaving like a foundation.
In some cases, it’s donors simply assuming the attitude of a foundation, e.g., “I have giving guidelines and expectations around organizational transparency, dialogic engagement, and accountability.”
In others, donors are actually creating foundations or Donor-Advised Funds to achieve the same goals.
Underpinning this movement is an even larger trend away from subsidizing organizations (thus the decline in unrestricted support or giving to funding categories, including “strategic pillars”) and toward targeted investments in select organizations to incentivize certain purposes. More and more donors are saying in so many words, “I’m not interested in keeping organizations afloat; I want to zero in on people and programs that will make a significant sustainable difference.”
This trend portends even more of the same. Below are some of the implications for fundraising.
Yes, traditional approaches will continue to hold some appeal in some places with some donors, but the rising trends are clear. As with all trends, there are always exceptions, outliers, and anomalies. I fear, however, the shrinking exceptions will be seized on by too many to ignore what has been happening and what will be with greater certainty and consequence.
The Weakening of the Individual as Institutional Supporter: What it Portends for Fundraising
- Less receptivity to mass marketing and the single case for support
- Less automatic year-end giving
- The screening out of anything that looks like generic and/or assumptive fundraising
- Declining appeal of giving days and more attrition associated with them
- The need to put forward more experts, doers and champions so donors can see who they are investing in
- Presidents becoming of secondary importance in meeting with donors or only as effective as the people and difference-making concepts they bring with them
- Favoring fundraisers with the attributes of Foundation Relations officers – mastery of content, clear writers and thinkers, strategic matchmakers, adamant stewards
Jim Langley is the president of Langley Innovations. Langley Innovations provides a range of services to its clients to help them understand the cultural underpinnings of philanthropy and the psychology of donors and, with that knowledge, to develop the most effective strategies and tactics to build broader and more lasting communities of support. Jim has authored numerous books, including his most recent book, The Future of Fundraising: Adapting to New Philanthropic Realities, published by Academic Impressions in 2020.
