A Blast From the Past: My Big Mistakes — And What I Learned From Them (February 2012)

FundRaising Success published its first issue in November 2003, which makes this our 10-year anniversary year. To celebrate, we'll be taking a look back at past issues throughout the year.

The strange thing about mistakes is that you can always find new ones to make. I keep thinking that, at my advanced age, I have made all the mistakes I can and have used up my full lifetime allocation of actual and potential mistakes.

Alas, there is always a new, sneaky one just waiting around the corner. But if you spend your life frightened by the next mistake you might make, you would just stay at home and, maybe, just stay in bed and sleep your life away.

I have a good friend who is a brain surgeon from Germany. One day I asked him, "The rest of us are always saying that it's good to learn from our mistakes and no one is going to die — we're not brain surgeons. So, Jorn, what do you brain surgeons say?"

"Well," he replied, "sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we learn from our mistakes … and sometimes people die."

That certainly puts my fundraising mistakes into perspective! And it gives me the courage to take a deep breath and share them with you. So to celebrate my six decades, here are six big mistakes and what I learned from them — and believe me, I have plenty more up my sleeve, but there is only so much public shame a girl can take.

Read the rest of the article here.