Fundraising bosses want you to get gifts; advancement leaders want you to build partnerships.
Fundraising bosses want you to solicit soon; advancement leaders want you to first elicit prospects’ passions, purposes and hopes.
Fundraising bosses celebrate success in the form of dollar goals; advancement leaders explore reasons for struggle and failure, especially the loss of donors.
Objective listening and non-defensive responsiveness are the means by which we can begin to reverse decades of “dollars up, donors down” and avoid “dollars down, down, down.”
Yes, leaders need to be a bit of a boss, but they don’t take more from the past and present than they give to the future.
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.
