For fundraising maven Bernard Ross, a flexible mindset is the key to success.

By David Mckenna

Which is not to say that all successful campaigns must serve humanitarian ends and depend on socially conscious donors. Ross the idealist thinks of fundraising as a tool for advancing “useful and purposeful” causes such as winning freedom for innocents. But Ross the pragmatist realizes that effective fundraisers can persuade people to believe in almost any cause, from the noble to the frivolous.