Donor Focus: African Americans

“I understood perfectly,” Burnette says. “There was no effort to get to know this donor constituency. There’s a sense [among some nonprofit organizations] that if we ask you to become a participant, you will. It doesn’t work like that.”

Throughout U.S. history, there have been many organizations that have had less than ideal relationships with the African-American community and, equally, many that have failed to adopt culturally specific fundraising approaches.