Saving/Slaying the Nonprofit: Chapter 10 of The Fundraising Survival Guide
The final chapter, for subscribers only
And that’s a wrap, because here’s the last chapter of The Fundraising Survival Guide! Thanks for sticking with it. If you’re a subscriber to this Substack, you’ll get to read this chapter. You could also order THE FUNDRAISING SURVIVAL GUIDE on Amazon.
Chapter 10: Saving/Slaying the Nonprofit
By now, you’ve heard one man’s view on the state of fundraising and how a one-person development office can navigate this dismal era of philanthropy. Hopefully, you’ve laughed. Some part of me also hopes you’ve wept. But I hope more than anything that you’ve learned you’re not alone.
This is easily forgotten. While you toil in the dungeons of your nonprofit, sacrificing more of yourself every day, the organizations ask more and more out of you. The nonprofit feast is never satisfied. You begin to wonder when the misery ends. How can you get yourself out of the rut? Will your career ever slow down, and does the pressure cooker of the development lifestyle — raising money while abusing your family and drugs — ever ease up?
Not by itself, no.
Throughout this book, I’ve demonstrated the dialectic of the development officer: we are both the assassin and the resurrection. The development officer takes the money out of the donor’s pocket to apply to their cause but also gives back the recognition that the donor craves.
Penitence is an inefficient start to an organization. However, these sinners desire catharsis. They want to know that everything will be okay, that their gifts are a down payment on passage to heaven, or that they can slip into the great nothingness beyond life’s end without a sliver of guilt in their hearts.
Development officers mete out forgiveness. By giving thank you notes, acknowledging donors, and writing reports, we create the circumstances for people to feel better about themselves. We are the float in the July 4th parade, gifting out candy to those who cheer. More than anything, development and fundraising represent something that the Catholic Church got into trouble for back in the day.
No, not that. Get your mind out of the gutter. This: functionaries of the Church used to hand out forgiveness and place a monetary value on it. Sins could be washed clean with cash. The Catholic Church made a good amount of money from these indulgences. It got to the point where the poor felt incredible existential anxiety. For them, a lack of wealth on earth meant a lack of grace in heaven.
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