Fundraising Success--Belief is Key

Launching of the James Caird

I'm fond of Napolean Hill's expression: "Whatsoever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."  It comes back to me time and time again, especially when it seems as if progress is difficult.

I'll admit that up until recently embracing this axiom was difficult.  Then I recently read an excellent book by Claude Bristol entitled The Magic of Believing.  It helped me recall several episodes during my life where I held an intention to be, do, have, or accomplish something without being attached to any particular way it manifested.

I know this seems counter-intuitive.  We're often VERY attached to goals and the methods we employ to achieve them.  Especially in fundraising.  It's not a bad thing.  Processes are useful.  Metrics are helpful.  Progress is good.  And yet, I am acutely aware that we are very often surprised by the circumstances that lead us toward meeting our goals.

An example may be helpful here.  When at Princeton, each year the team I led would put forth a forecast of the amount of money the University would receive from various sources that our team was responsible.  From that forecast, each individual would develop a plan with objectives, goals, strategies, and metrics that were within his/her zones of control and influence.  And, here's the kicker: there's a zone beyond our control and influence where "we don't know what we don't know."   It is often from there that the most surprising results emerge.

Thankfully, we met or exceeded our forecast each year--frequently with delightful surprises that were unplanned.  This achievement was accomplished in no small part because we believed we could do it, and we were not too attached to exactly how it would happen.

I'll share another example from my personal life.  In the 1990's I read the story of Ernest Shackleton sailing a small open boat 800 miles with five companions for 16 days across the treacherous South Atlantic to reach civilization to save his men.  That voyage (along with the subsequent traverse of South Georgia Island) is among the most memorable tales of belief and perseverance in the face of extraordinary difficulty from the early 20th century.  It inspired in me the burning desire to own and operate a small open rowing/sailing craft (and learn to sail along the way).

That desire became planted in my subconscious during a time when I lived by the northern New Jersey shoreline.  I subsequently moved to Wyoming, and then California.  While the access to the sea was limited during the ten year period out west, the desire to row and sail a small open craft never ceased. Ten years after learning about the voyage of the James Caird, I was back on the east coast living near the Long Island Sound, a body of water well suited to a small open rowing/sailing craft.  Within a year of my return to the east coast, I came into possession of the boat I had envisioned more than ten years earlier--a used, hand-crafted beauty.

I share this personal story to illustrate that the truth of Napolean Hill's axiom is not bounded by time or any particular circumstance.  In the fundraising profession, we're fond of creating ambitious campaigns with timelines, donor pyramids, and lots of anxiety over results.  By all means, establish plans, goals, and timelines.  Then I encourage you to let go and allow yourself to be pleasantly (dare I say, delightfully) surprised.

Fundraising Enables Freedom

As we celebrated the Independence of the United States of America this past 4th of July, I was reminded just how important fundraising was (and is) in the formation and nourishment of our private, non-profit organizations.  Especially in the realm of post-secondary education.

While 90% of children in America attend publicly funded schools from grades K-12, 30% of young adults attend privately funded Colleges and Universities.  And we know that publicly funded institutions of higher education rely more and more on private fundraising to support their missions. There is currently much weeping and gnashing of teeth in the media about the increase of tuition costs both in private and publicly funded higher education.  Many folks harken back to the post-WW II period (roughly1950 through 1990) during which university enrollments expanded rapidly, and public higher education in America was funded almost entirely through tax revenues.  Sadly, those days are over.

The good news is that Americans are, in general, an extraordinarily generous people.  Especially when it comes to education.  Year-in and year-out surveys of giving demonstrate that educational organizations rank second to religious groups in donor priority.  For private universities, the tradition of giving goes as far back as the late 1700's.  In one notable example, George Washington gave Liberty Hall Academy (now Washington and Lee University) 150 shares of James River and Potomac Canal Company stock (then valued at $20,000) to "promote literature...and to encourage the arts."  Many public universities are now in the midst of massive, multi-billion dollar private fundraising campaigns.  Thankfully, through the hard work of professional fundraisers and volunteers, those institutions can rely on a generation of donors who are rising to the call despite the angst over the costs associated with higher ed

I bring this topic to the fore at this time because it remains essential that the current and future generations of American citizens receive an education that enables them to make an informed decision when they exercise their responsibility to vote in our representative form of democratic government.  This function, above all else, is the primary role of education in our society. 

I am honored to be part of the fundraising profession that enables that freedom.