A Blast From the Past: How Much Asking is Too Much? (March 2008)

Sounds plausible, but it’s wrong. In fact, the donor-burnout myth is one of the most harmful forces in our industry.

The limited-resource view of fundraising is based on a fundamentally unrealistic view of human nature. If you want a more realistic approach, don’t think of fundraising as a kind of removing; instead, think of it as a kind of cultivating. When you motivate a donor to give, you haven’t taken a tree out of a forest that needs time to regrow. It’s more like you’ve pruned a rose bush, encouraging more and better growth.