Talking About a Revolution…in Fundraising

In my last blog post, I talked about charities needing to adjust to our new fundraising environment—it’s not the time to retrench, but rather be creative and try big ideas that can revitalize your organization.

Right on cue, I was reminded about this great op-ed in The Chronicle of Philanthropy about a month ago about organizations who have achieved great success over the past few years. Instead of sitting back in “survival” mode, they’ve seized the economic crisis as an opportunity, increased their revenue and made an even greater impact than before.

The piece was written by the authors of Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits, Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant. If you haven’t read this book yet, I strongly recommend you do. It’s a primer on how we can start adapting to our new environment and discusses some great ideas that cut against tradition thinking, but have been successful nevertheless.

I can’t say it enough: we’re not seeing evolutionary change. This is revolutionary change. This IS a new world, and we have to start thinking differently.

The authors of Forces for Good have some great ideas, but you can find innovation and creativity everywhere. We just have to be ready to adjust our thinking and take advantage of them.