Fundraising the SMART Way: Predictable, Consistent Income Growth for Your Charity, + Website

Chapter 10Radical Thinking about the Fundraising Revolution

For too long, the fundraising discipline has been more art than science. Art is great in its place, especially when we define it the classical way, as a trade or craft utilizing a system of principles and methods, like “the art of winemaking.”¹ Here's the problem of relying on art: it can take decades of practice and experience, preferably under the mentorship of others who have already accrued similar experience, to be any good at it. That's probably the best way to become a great bassoonist, ceramic artist, or ballet dancer, but it doesn't work very well in business.

Business, be it for-profit or not-for-profit, is no longer willing to support such long apprenticeships. The profit margins simply aren't there. And in a nonprofit world where the infamous overhead ratio continues to hold sway, few organizations are willing to tolerate the cost of paying unseasoned development officers (higher overhead costs, right?) if they can't raise three times their salary—by next Thursday, please.

Since there are only so many fundraisers left with 40 years of “art” under their belts, and since most of them will probably hang up their cleats in the next few years, now what do we do?

Now we add some science to the mix. It's management science, fortunately, not astrophysics or string theory, which is good; for the most part, management science is easy to understand and adopt. Everything we've discussed in this book has been based on ...