“Fundraising is all about relationships,” we say.
Sure.
And then we churn through lists and count the level of activity for members of our team (how many calls, how many meetings, etc.), because actually measuring relationships and whether they’re being created is really, really hard.
Of course you must churn through the list. You must reach out more. It’s non-negotiable. You don’t get to hide behind “I’m a relationship-builder so I don’t do proactive outreach” because the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
But you’ll be churning through lists forever, with the same disappointing effort-to-outcome ratio, if you don’t get more of your relationships to cross the emotional chasm.
You know it when it happens – those people with whom you made a genuine connection, those people who touched you as much as you touched them. You know it because you understand these people in a different way – and they understand you in a different way – because you have shared something genuine about who you are, deep down in your soul.
I know. It’s uncomfortable to actually say that kind of thing out loud.
But we’re in this because we actually want to make the world a better place, right? There’s nothing more real, honest and vulnerable than that. That’s why this job is so hard when you’re trying to protect yourself and keep things at arm’s length, and why it becomes natural when you allow real human connection to happen, even if just for an instant.
I’m glad you mentioned the necessity of emotional connection and the difficulty of quantifying it, because the same thing happens in Social Work. In many circles, we are required to encounter clients behind this blank screen of anonymity that is supposed to strengthen our ability to do outreach, but usually just creates a distance between folks. I think when we develop human-centered relationships things will take care of themselves, even though I still believe deeply in targets/goals!
Thank you Sasha. Authentic emotional connection is an exigency of our time, intrinsic to our move toward world peace.
Preach! Spot on as usual. And I am not a believer in measuring people on process in development.