257 | How much of fundraising’s pre-pandemic playbook are we throwing out?

The Fundraising Talent Podcast

Today’s conversation with Jeff at EAB was fascinating to say the least. Our conversation, informed significantly by the research that Jeff and his team have either conducted or been a part of, centered around the question of how much of fundraising’s pre-pandemic playbook we are going to throw out and what are we going to keep. Jeff shared with me that the traditional advancement models we see in higher education, largely predicated on alums willingness to show up and agreeing to participate, hasn’t been showing signs of improvement for quite some time. He explains that these aspects of fundraising has been on an unsustainable path for quite some time and that the pandemic simply forced many of us to confront this reality.

Jeff explained that many of our challenges on the road ahead will surface simply because our inability to work out the economics. I suppose what was most encouraging to hear was how much opportunity is actually out there if we are willing to adapt, evolve and experiment with different ways of doing things. For example, Jeff noted that the number of major gift donors who, at many institutions, never receive any meaningful engagement reaches into the thousands simply because of their geographical dispersement and the immediacy with which we expect our efforts to pay off. In between the lines of what I hear in a conversation like this is an opportunity for fundraising to experience a real growth spurt and to perhaps become more exploratory work.

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