Game Changer Book…Go Get It!

I feel very fortunate to have good friends who are in the fundraising profession. I appreciate their faith and their trust as well as their best wishes and thoughts for the things that I do on a daily basis. With that said, let me reverse it by saying how appreciative I am for a couple people and a book being released this week.

Brian Crimmins and Nathan Chappell have finished their book which is being released to the public this week called The Generosity Crisis. It should be a must read for all. Having read it several months ago as a unofficial reviewer, I'm blown away by what it says and what it means. The authors did a fantastic job of describing this crisis of generosity and how we're seeing so many fewer households make a single gift to charity period, now below 50% of US household. Twenty years ago, it was over 2/3 of the households who made an annual gift to charity. 

Why is this happening?

The authors posit that there is a missing component to the relationships that we have with our donors and members of our community. They call it a radical connection. Basically, it comes down to the lack of transformational leadership and relationships which has been replaced by transactional giving.

Here's the rub. As we go into difficult economic times, at least compared to the last decade, the deeper your relationships the more likely they are to stick with you as donors. If we've treated donors as an ATM, then it shouldn't be surprising when we go to take some money out, but there's none available. What is it that we need to do to communicate the value of someone's engagement? How do we measure that impact? How do we share the value and impact of someone’s gift on third parties that are in need?

Bottom line is we're going to have to change the way we do what we do. I'd recommend starting with The Generosity Crisis. It's worth your time.