Ann wrote last week about “Fundraising Bright Spots”, a report by Kim Klein and Jeanne Bell that highlights social justice organizations that are beating the odds in terms of revenue growth and donor engagement.

This report has lots of gold nuggets that can change the course of your fundraising. And it’s not theoretical! These Bright Spots are real fundraising operations that are succeeding right now beyond expectation.

The first recommendation in the Bright Spots report is critical, but definitely not the easiest to make happen.

#1 Fundraising is core to the organization’s identity.

“Traditionally, fundraising has been viewed as a supporting activity, as an overhead cost, as a means to a programmatic end. That’s not the case for the Bright Spots. For them, fundraising is part and parcel of organizational identity.” ~ Bright Spots report

When we ask many executive directors, board members, and fundraising staff what their vision is for fundraising we normally get the following answers:

“We want to raise as much money as we can.”

“We want to grow by 20%.”

“We want to start a major gifts program.”

But this isn’t what we mean by fundraising vision, and it isn’t what the Bright Spots organizations have in mind either. (For more on fundraising vision check out this blog from the archives that gives you 5 questions to start the conversation.)

Fundraising is a form of organizing and power-building, not merely a strategy for financing the organization’s work.

Fundraising is about so much more than money.

The way you raise money tells people something about your organization. It speaks to your organizational values and your beliefs about how to make change in the world.

Big advocacy organizations like Greenpeace and Amnesty International want to build as large a donor base as they can to show the support for their issues. They aren’t doing direct mail and online fundraising because it’s the most efficient way to raise money, they are doing it because they need their supporters to be donors and advocates.

On the other side of the spectrum, research institutions generally have no need for large numbers of individual donors. Their goal is to work with government, foundation, and corporate donors to leverage as many funds in as few transactions as possible to continue their work.

Organizations like Doctors Without Borders engage their donors in way more beyond funding. The donors actually deliver the work.

It all comes down to strategy and organizational values. Does your organization believe that the path to change is by activating individuals to do something? Or is your organization trying to move money as quickly and efficiently as possible by building strong relationships with big funders.

There is no right answer. Your fundraising strategy has to reflect your organizational values and your vision for the future.

So, the next time you want to talk fundraising strategy start out with this question:

What does your fundraising say about your organization and the change you want to make?

You might be surprised to learn what opportunities open up when ask this important question.

photo by Dubwise Version via Creative Commons