A Realistic Look at Annual Funds

Over time, the universe of mass solicitation — though it was exploding in real geographic terms, in terms of numbers of donors and prospects, and in terms of dollars — is distilling itself into a smaller and smaller space: the psychological real estate the charity owns in the donor’s mind.

Decades ago, when we used volunteer groups to canvass, life was paced such that we could capture a week or more from our volunteers. They, in turn, were typically able to capture up to an hour from our donors as they made their personal solicitation calls. We “owned” a large chunk of psychological real estate in our constituent’s mind.