How does fear—or fearlessness—factor into fundraising?
When I was asked to write for our fearless fundraiser series I chuckled. I am not a fearless fundraiser. I am not a fearless person. I have a lot of fears, all the time. They range from the mundane—spiders, the fear of my favorite concealer being reformulated, ahem, Cle de Peau—to the more serious, such as something happening to my family, something happening to my health, and natural disasters.
I think it’s pretty normal to not be fearless. But this all got me thinking about my own fundraising career and the strategies I’ve used to overcome fear and the paralysis it can cause.
Those of us who work in this field like to have a lot of information. We are always seeking pieces of data. We like ratings, backgrounds, scoop, hearsay, details, Zillow listings—absolutely anything that can shed light on what motivates a donor. Many of us will then exchange strategy ideas and get the opinions of managers and colleagues, and role-play or map out interactions—what to say if the donor says ‘yes’ what to say if they say ‘no’.
It’s not just that we are afraid of a ‘no’ from a donor, it’s that we are afraid of a ‘no’ because we missed some piece of information or obvious strategy. When we do hear ‘no’, we want to be able to attribute it to the whims of a donor, not our own failure. So, we arm ourselves with as much information as possible.
All of this time and effort spent on perfecting our approach is well-intentioned. After all, we are all motivated by big missions: to change the world, end hunger, improve healthcare, etc. We are thoughtful about our work and our actions because we want to advance those missions. And we are thoughtful about our relationships with donors because at the end of the day we want to help them advance the missions they care deeply about too.
And we should be thoughtful about our asks. It is a big deal to ask someone to turn over their hard-earned (or inherited) treasure. We should absolutely be well-prepared. So, we go out of our way to arm ourselves with information and make thoughtful decisions. We go out of our way to arm ourselves against the sting of a ‘no’. We go out of our way to justify our actions.
But are we also justifying inaction?
How fear of a ‘no’ holds us back
Picture this: You have a big goal to hit for your organization—and you have a lightbulb idea of how to do it. You have a donor in mind. She cares deeply about the mission, has made significant gifts to the organization previously, and has made similar-sized gifts to other organizations. The ingredients are there for a strategy to be executed. So, you go through your process and build out a strategy. You already have a relationship with her and feel confident that you could ask for a meeting to get started.
Your manager suggests you present it at a team meeting. During that meeting, the corporate team mentions the donor’s family’s company (with which the donor is not associated). The events manager mentions that she was planning to ask for a gala sponsorship and your strategy hinders that. The Executive Director knows the donor’s husband and suggests he can help with the strategy during a golf outing. So, the group decides that collaboration meetings are needed so that everyone can get on the same page. New research is done. Friends of the donor are reviewed. An unplanned stewardship report is commissioned.
Before you know it, weeks and months are creeping by and your bi-weekly collaboration meetings – though full of interesting discussions – have produced a whole lot of inaction. Then it’s the end of the fiscal year, and it’s too late to work this big of a strategy. So you ask the donor for a (much smaller) end-of-year gift and that’s that—you’ve missed your opportunity.
How to know you’re stuck in ‘analysis paralysis’
In my role as a consultant, despite my best efforts, I do end up using some consulting jargon (ugh). One of them is ‘analysis paralysis’. Analysis paralysis occurs in decision-making when people consider pieces of information, viewpoints, opinions, and outcomes to the point that it clouds the overall strategy and instead sows confusion, to the point that a decision is perpetually put off. I see it time and time again with clients as well as in my career as a fundraiser. And I did this too with my own donors many, many times.
It may surprise you to see this behavior with leaders, too. A leader will have an amazing network that they want to tap into for their organization, including personal friends with whom they could easily have a conversation. And yet before sending an email, multiple rounds of wealth screening are requested. Draft language is needed. Questions such as, “why don’t we have a RelSci?” are raised. (You think to yourself, we didn’t run a RelSci because he’s your neighbor).
Fundraising at its core is built on relationships. And at the end of the day, analysis paralysis occurs because none of us—be it a gift officer, an executive director, or a board chair—wants to make the wrong decision and hear the wrong response.
We are afraid of hearing ‘no’. We are afraid of not hitting our goal. We are afraid of not serving the mission of our organization. We are afraid of looking bad. We are afraid of losing a relationship.
So, how do we un-paralyze?
Again, asking for donations is a big deal. You should strategize, prepare, and know your stuff. But you also have to act. Once we’ve acknowledged what fears are paralyzing us, we can take the necessary steps to ensure they don’t paralyze us in our work. Here are a few strategies that have worked for me:
Make your bed
In his 2014 commencement speech to the University of Texas at Austin, Admiral William H. McRaven told his audience, “If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. …It will encourage you to do another task.”
Now, you should be making your bed every day, but I’m not your mom or your housekeeper. I’m bringing this up for your career as a fundraiser. Find your version of “making your bed.” It could be entering contact reports. It could be writing thank you notes. Find something that is relatively easy to do and do it— routinely. You will find that this gives you confidence and momentum to do harder and harder things.
Plan your work and work your plan
Building moves management plans proactively and with intentionality will set you up for success. It will also protect you from the chaos of trying to figure things out at the last minute because your donor finally wants to meet. The second part of this—the working your plan part—requires the confidence to stay above the noise and keep moving. You know what you’re doing, you built a good plan. Stick to it.
The best action is the one you will actually do
Don’t overcomplicate your moves to the point that you are uncomfortable, or that they require too many other stakeholders to be achievable—because you will find excuses not to do them. Keep it simple.
‘No’ is a good thing
We acknowledged earlier our fear of no and our fear that a ‘no’ may jeopardize our relationships. That fear is natural, but don’t let it get in the way of taking action. Instead, arm yourself with an internal ‘pep talk’ for when you inevitably get this response. Practice your response. And allow me to suggest welcoming a ‘no’. A ‘no’ is an opportunity to learn more about what didn’t hit and digging into that builds a deeper relationship. And hey, it’s better than being ghosted!
It sounds cool to be fearless, but no one actually is. And in fact, some amount of fear in this business is good. It brings out humanity. Understanding what is causing your fear and taking action to overcome it is powerful. By doing that, you deepen your relationships and you serve your organization’s mission.
Jessica Lucadamo
Jessica Lucadamo is a Director, Client Services at Aperio Philanthropy where she supports nonprofits in strengthening and growing their fundraising programs. She has supported Aperio’s partnerships with organizations including Make-A-Wish, Inter-faith Housing Alliance, Center for Election Science, Children’s Cancer Research Fund and Atlanta Community Food Bank. Jessica has experience in frontline fundraising and strategic planning and specializes in developing long-term strategies for donor engagement.
