It was the best T-shirt I ever saw.
Not the color. Not the fit. What it said.
“Work at Simple.”
Oh, if we only would do that!
Fundraising shops work very hard at being complicated.
One fundraising software dominates the market. It requires the attention of a full time staff person. That’s common knowledge.
Development shops associate “sophisticated” or “advanced” with the most complicated schematics and plans. Ask what’s going on and it can make your head spin!
The most brilliant fundraising management philosophy I’ve ever heard:
“We believe our job is to remove the roadblocks, the speed bumps that stand in the way of our gift officers doing the job they were brought here to do. What gets in the way of making visits and making asks? We commit ourselves every day to removing those obstacles. We know that is the key to success.”
Work at Simple.
Yesterday I had coffee with a retired director of development. He told me about his experience as a major gifts officer at a university and a national health organization.
“It was crazy. Both places, I was expected to make visits AND to manage one or two fundraising events every year.
“I couldn’t help but wonder, ‘What are they thinking?’”
Stay tuned. Next week we’ll look at what Simple means.