“Be not afraid.”
Jeff Brooks, – Donor Power Blog, 01.05.2008
“Or at least act like you’re not afraid. These are tough times. We face hard choices and painful situations.
But if you let fear drive your thinking, it’s going to be a lot worse. The fear-driven nonprofit that cuts fundraising and crawls into a hole will stay in their own recession one to two years after the general recession ends.
That’s because when you stop filling the pipelines with new donors, you end up in the following year with few second-year donors. The second year after you stop acquiring donors, you have a shortage of core donors — your best, most committed, most valuable donors. And the empty donor class continues to echo through your fundraising, hurting you for years into the future.
At the very least, keep acquiring donors.
Better yet, ramp up your donor acquisition. You may find that the fear-driven cutbacks of other organizations have left donor mailboxes less crowded.”
Yoav