Friendraising...

During my rookie fundraising years in the mid-1990s I attended conferences and workshops on how to find and retain major donors. One of the phrases that regularly emerged sounded something like this: “Good fundraising is built on great FRIENDraising.” Friendraising. It looked valid enough on paper, but something about the concept made me uneasy.  

Are you familiar with the Enneagram personality styles spectrum? If so, you’ll understand my profile as an 8wing9. Essentially an8w9’s basic fears and desires have more to do with holding onto life-long relationships than making new friends. As an Enneagram 8w9, it’s not surprising that the notion of friendraising was a dismaying experience for me.

Over time, as I settled into my fundraising career, I became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of friendraising as a major donor development strategy. I wondered if perhaps we might find another term or phrase to adequately describe the importance of doing both. What began to resonate with me was the idea of building and maintaining life-long relationships.

‘Relationship building’ describes the narrative of our good work without the potential baggage involved in ‘friendraising’. Relationship building means:

• Our approach is intended to be long term and less transactional.
• We seek to be aware of our donors’ background, their story of wealth, what feeds their passion, what motivates them, and why they are interested in our cause.
• We speak to our donors with respect and avoid pandering (which will jeopardize a long-term relationship).
• We understand the key role that “play” offers in our donor relationship. We offer opportunities for their family to enjoy participating in the discovery and giving process.

By choosing these postures we create the potential for relationships to become meaningful; we cultivate a genuine interest in spending time together. Many of my major donor relationships have been established in this way over the years. However, sometimes these relationships are simply built around a shared interest in the cause. This can be effective. The end goal is to discern how best to serve your donor. They will appreciate your authenticity in discovering what works best for them.  

I've created an assessment called SToR (Strength of Relationship) which you can download here to reflect on each one of your giver relationships. Take a look at it and feel free to add a time to my calendar if you want to talk through it in more detail.

I believe major donor fundraising is not about finding new friendships. Finding new friendships is not about raising major gifts. Both are much more important than that.

See you next week.

* * * * * * * * * *

Depending on your day to day needs in major donor fundraising, I have three options you can choose from to energize your efforts:

• ‍The Catalyst Course - a major donor fundraising course for those who are new to the task.‍
• The High-Performance Course (coming soon) - a major donor fundraising course for experienced professionals.‍
• The Flywheel Package - a customized six month consultation for people who are leading teams of major donor fundraisers.

The Catalyst and High-Performance courses are affordable at a cost of $500 and can be done in a schedule that fits best for you, taking anywhere from six weeks to three months to complete. Everything I have learned, successes and failures, is packed into these courses for your benefit and enjoyment. I have taken hundreds of folks through this content, helping them with fundraising strategies to empower causes all over the world.   

Now is the time to take advantage of these resources!  

I look forward to hearing about your good work.

Blessings,