The Disconnect Between Fundraising and Movement-Building
posted on: Thursday, May 01, 2008
By Priscilla Hung
At GIFT (Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training) and the Grassroots Fundraising Journal, we focus on fundraising, the flip side of philanthropy. Even with engaged and progressive funders and donors, recipient organizations must still build relationships with them, request funds appropriately, and demonstrate the impact of their work.
But it continues to be a struggle for most grassroots groups to engage in individual donor fundraising in an empowering and sustainable way. Why is that?
In early April at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice in New York, we hosted a discussion on this issue with a mix of fundraising staff members, progressive funders, nonprofit directors, and consultants. The conversation touched on a lot of different reasons why grassroots groups struggle with building a broad base of supporters – ranging from not having a clear message or way to communicate with our communities, to not using technology in our outreach efforts, to there being too many nonprofits and not enough money to support all of them, as middle-and working-class communities struggle to stay afloat and government funding decreases.
One person said that there’s a tension between organization-building and movement-building. Organizations often feel they have to compete for dollars and attention. They feel pressured to play up successes and take full credit for them while in donor and funder meetings, even when they know their efforts are only successful if lots of other organizations are also engaged in the work. They get the sense that fundraising should be done by highly-skilled people, but it’s okay if they’re not politically active. People come away from trainings thinking that they must create major donor programs that cater to people who aren’t part of their base.
And those who are fundraising staff often feel isolated, with the stress of a lot of responsibility but little authority. They often have no involvement in the programs of the organization and don’t know what other staff are doing, resulting in missed opportunities to use fundraising to organize, and to use organizing drives to fundraise. Or on the other extreme, they may have too much authority by determining which programs get funded and which ones don’t.
This is how too many groups operate. It doesn’t have to be that way. Step by step, groups around the country and around the world are changing the way fundraising and community-building look. Capacity-builders like GIFT are democratizing and demystifying fundraising. Groups are talking together about how to resource the social justice movement.
But where to go from these isolated efforts? Where are the settings that foster big ideas and bold new strategies in fundraising that match our progressive political values? Where is the community where people work together and support each other to try new resource development ideas and take risks – and have each other’s back if they don’t work?
There are incomplete conversations happening. Conversations of fundraisers that don’t involve organizers. And conversations of organizing that may touch on fundraising but don’t involve people who identify themselves as fundraisers. Fundraising is too often left out of the conversation because it’s often seen as a skill that some staff member just needs to learn and take care of. What will it take for groups to see that fundraising is political?
And what are the consequences if we continue to fundraise in isolation – in isolation within our own organizations, in isolation from each other, and in isolation from movement-building strategies and activities? Groups always scraping by, never able to have all the money they need to do something like change national policy? A public distrustful of and disconnected from nonprofits? Groups dependent on foundations and not reaching out to their communities?
GIFT is working toward creating a space where we can bridge the gaps between movement-building conversations and fundraising ones. When GIFT first started, we were excited to have twenty people of color in the room who wanted to fundraise. A decade later, at our first Raising Change: A Social Justice Fundraising Conference in 2006, we had 420 people in a room wanting to discuss fundraising, with almost 300 hundred of them being people of color.
Join us at the next Raising Change: A Social Justice Fundraising Conference, this July 25-26 in San Francisco, CA so we can keep the conversation going.
Priscilla Hung is Co-Director of GIFT. GIFT provides fundraising training, resources, and analysis to social justice organizations nationwide. It also publishes the Grassroots Fundraising Journal and hosts Raising Change: A Social Justice Fundraising Conference. Priscilla@grassrootsfundraising.org
At GIFT (Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training) and the Grassroots Fundraising Journal, we focus on fundraising, the flip side of philanthropy. Even with engaged and progressive funders and donors, recipient organizations must still build relationships with them, request funds appropriately, and demonstrate the impact of their work.
But it continues to be a struggle for most grassroots groups to engage in individual donor fundraising in an empowering and sustainable way. Why is that?
In early April at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice in New York, we hosted a discussion on this issue with a mix of fundraising staff members, progressive funders, nonprofit directors, and consultants. The conversation touched on a lot of different reasons why grassroots groups struggle with building a broad base of supporters – ranging from not having a clear message or way to communicate with our communities, to not using technology in our outreach efforts, to there being too many nonprofits and not enough money to support all of them, as middle-and working-class communities struggle to stay afloat and government funding decreases.
One person said that there’s a tension between organization-building and movement-building. Organizations often feel they have to compete for dollars and attention. They feel pressured to play up successes and take full credit for them while in donor and funder meetings, even when they know their efforts are only successful if lots of other organizations are also engaged in the work. They get the sense that fundraising should be done by highly-skilled people, but it’s okay if they’re not politically active. People come away from trainings thinking that they must create major donor programs that cater to people who aren’t part of their base.
And those who are fundraising staff often feel isolated, with the stress of a lot of responsibility but little authority. They often have no involvement in the programs of the organization and don’t know what other staff are doing, resulting in missed opportunities to use fundraising to organize, and to use organizing drives to fundraise. Or on the other extreme, they may have too much authority by determining which programs get funded and which ones don’t.
This is how too many groups operate. It doesn’t have to be that way. Step by step, groups around the country and around the world are changing the way fundraising and community-building look. Capacity-builders like GIFT are democratizing and demystifying fundraising. Groups are talking together about how to resource the social justice movement.
But where to go from these isolated efforts? Where are the settings that foster big ideas and bold new strategies in fundraising that match our progressive political values? Where is the community where people work together and support each other to try new resource development ideas and take risks – and have each other’s back if they don’t work?
There are incomplete conversations happening. Conversations of fundraisers that don’t involve organizers. And conversations of organizing that may touch on fundraising but don’t involve people who identify themselves as fundraisers. Fundraising is too often left out of the conversation because it’s often seen as a skill that some staff member just needs to learn and take care of. What will it take for groups to see that fundraising is political?
And what are the consequences if we continue to fundraise in isolation – in isolation within our own organizations, in isolation from each other, and in isolation from movement-building strategies and activities? Groups always scraping by, never able to have all the money they need to do something like change national policy? A public distrustful of and disconnected from nonprofits? Groups dependent on foundations and not reaching out to their communities?
GIFT is working toward creating a space where we can bridge the gaps between movement-building conversations and fundraising ones. When GIFT first started, we were excited to have twenty people of color in the room who wanted to fundraise. A decade later, at our first Raising Change: A Social Justice Fundraising Conference in 2006, we had 420 people in a room wanting to discuss fundraising, with almost 300 hundred of them being people of color.
Join us at the next Raising Change: A Social Justice Fundraising Conference, this July 25-26 in San Francisco, CA so we can keep the conversation going.
Priscilla Hung is Co-Director of GIFT. GIFT provides fundraising training, resources, and analysis to social justice organizations nationwide. It also publishes the Grassroots Fundraising Journal and hosts Raising Change: A Social Justice Fundraising Conference. Priscilla@grassrootsfundraising.org
posted by NCRP at
1:17 PM
2 Comments:
Hello. I had to comment on this because pretty much everything you said makes a lot of sense. I recently attended a conference where most of the individuals in attendance were from community/social justice groups and it saddened me that so many of them are barely making it and for many of the reason's you sited. I mentioned that what would be nice is if in a county or community if there was a place these groups could turn to to get help with basic fund raising principles, communication and in general get some management skills.
As someone who is in the field, recently got her MPA, am young, I see a sector with such potential but with so much baggage. I have spent time doing a variety of things and often times even in larger organizations fundraisers don't talk to data management people, and marketing departments don't talk to fundraisers. The last point I would make is that organizations have to stop thinking that they need someone with ten years direct fundraising experience to get money, all they need is someone with passion and ability. In the current climate there just aren't enough seasoned fundraiers and honestly most organizations can't afford to hire someone with 5, 10 or more years direct fundraising under their belt.
I am curious as to what others think of this as well.
Tory
By
Vicknj, at 9:20 PM
A brilliant post, thank you. While I don't believe that fundraising and staying true to one's values have to be in competition, I have witnessed organizations suffering mission drift from chasing after money.
I think that developing a sound fundraising strategy built upon an organization's vision and values is a way to help bring in necessary program funds without sacrificing principles.
This strategy can include ways to develop necessary staff skills. I think that bringing together experienced fundraisers--whether as staff, trainers, or advisers--with those who have fresh, new perspectives can bring an exciting, vital energy to an organization’s fundraising efforts.
By
Randal Mason, at 11:03 PM
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