We Can’t Make People Philanthropic But We Can Deepen or Discourage Their Philanthropy

In a long career that led me to interact with thousands of donors, I can say with certainty that I never caused a single person who had never been philanthropic to become so. That was beyond my ability. Everyone had made the decision to give at some point on their own. The seeds of philanthropy were already within them. That is why I always met them with appreciation, if not awe, and gave them credit for “gifts given” not us for “dollars raised.”

Yet, I know I made a difference in their philanthropic direction, outlook, and intensity. I know many of you have, too. I also know we can do more – either more good or more harm.

We can:

• Help donors better understand the source of their philanthropic instincts and put them in touch with their deeper motivations that will lead to deeper, more meaningful commitments, or we can skim off the good in them and leave them feeling used
• Help donors heal from traumas and tragedies by showing them how to convert harm into help and how helping others will lessen their pain, or we can feign understanding and leave them feeling largely unheard, unhelped, and unhealed
• Help donors find kindred spirits by putting them in touch or in community with other donors with similar backstories, values, or interests and thereby abate their loneliness and heighten their joy, or we can leave them outside our organizations to be worked by a single fundraiser being flogged to find more
• Show donors that we will work as hard for them as we do for the cause we represent, or we can contort ethical reasoning and claim that our good intentions, often unsupported by notable deeds, allow us to take more than we give
• Look for and nurture the best in donors despite their flaws, or we can cite their flaws as a function of wealth and create sanctimonious us-them paradigms
• Cause donors to see our field as one composed of conscientious facilitators committed to building stronger communities of shared purpose or we can leave them feeling that our line of work is overpopulated with grinning, ingratiating, falsely cheerful imposters

It’s up to us. The more we deepen ourselves, the more we help others do the same and together give more meaning to philanthropy itself.

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. 

Related Resources:

• Webinar: 4-Step Process for “Reimagining Fundraising Operations”
• The Power of Building Relationships: Why Donors Need Good Fundraisers
• Why what you do is called ADVANCEMENT
• The Days of Easy Fundraising are Over
• The Two Most Important Words in Philanthropic Facilitation: “Because You”