Stop Trying to Teach Goldfish to Juggle

As far as we fundraisers are concerned, there are two kinds of people in the world: Donors and non-donors. These two groups are so different from each other that they might as well live in different worlds — which, in a way, they do.

I know it's oversimplifying to reduce the human race into just two groups. But it's useful to remember that not everyone is the same, and some people are predisposed to give while others are not. Keeping this in mind can help us think much more clearly about raising funds. It's easy to forget that we don't "raise" those funds at all. People give them to us. It's the donors — not us — who really make this whole thing work.