four - The art of fundraising

Summary

In contrast to the previous chapter, this chapter focuses on the non-technical aspects of fundraising. It draws on new data from interviews with successful UK fundraisers, as well as ideas in the literature, to demonstrate how social and personal skills are utilised in the ‘art’ of fundraising. This art involves responding creatively to the fact that every donor is unique, and that each unique donor has different intentions, attitudes and aspirations in the context of different giving scenarios. Further, the language of gift giving is, by convention, oblique, so the art involves an ability to understand what is really being said and desired, and to respond accordingly. As donors react badly to standardised offerings, the art of fundraising requires a tailored and highly personalised, even idiosyncratic, interaction, which is difficult to capture within the body of codified knowledge and best practice that was discussed in the previous chapter.

The birthday card dilemma

An interview with a female director of fundraising at a major UK charity began with her explaining how the morning had gone so far: she had been in a brief meeting to agree a significant budget for a new direct mail campaign, and had then had an extended discussion with a colleague debating whether or not to send a birthday card to a relatively new and potentially major donor. They had chewed over questions such as: Was it too soon to be so familiar? Or was it worse not to acknowledge the occasion? If a card was sent, should it say ‘Dear Mr Smith’ or ‘Dear Bob’? And how warm should the greeting be? Too fulsome would come across as insincere; too measured would fail to convey the closeness desired – if not yet achieved – by the charity. These deliberations were described with a self-knowing laugh, aware that an observer would expect big budget decisions to require more introspection than the birthday card dilemma. But getting this latter sort of call right has long been key to successful fundraising. Fifty years ago, Seymour described a good fundraising campaign as ‘an aggregate of the tremendous trifles by which any enterprise wins and holds public approval’ (Seymour, 1966, p 95–6, my emphasis).