Stay curious, my friends.
The most effective fundraising professionals I know seem to have at least one thing in common.
They are disarmingly curious.
They are curious about their organizations, curious about the conversations happening across their sector, curious about their own thoughts and feelings, and (POSSIBLY MOST IMPORTANTLY) curious about their champions.
Donor preferences are ever-changing, and fundraising tactics and strategies will come and go, but asking questions will never go out of style.
It’s a common misconception that fundraisers need big outgoing personalities to succeed — that they have to be gifted, articulate communicators able to persuade anyone to do anything.
The most effective fundraisers I’ve known were not always the smooth-talking, great in front of a crowd, charming, persuasive, larger-than-life personalities.
Those are nice qualities to have, but they’re not required.
Why?
Because fundraising isn’t about persuading people to give.
In fact, your value as a fundraising professional has almost nothing to do with your ability to share information or be persuasive.
Your value is WAY more connected to your ability to ask questions and listen than it is to anything you’ll ever say.
Your job is not to convince people to give you money.
Your job is to be curious about people, to ask questions about the impact they want to have, to learn about them, their hopes, their dreams, and the difference they want to make in the world.
Your job is to genuinely listen.
And then, once you’ve listened and have an idea about who they are and the difference they want to make, your job is to invite them to give to make that difference happen.
Sometimes we compare fundraising to sales, but fundraising has way more in common with journalism or detective work than sales.
I’ll take genuine curiosity over persuasion and charm every time.
If you are always curious about people and the things they care about, they will always answer when you call and they will usually consider any giving opportunity you share with them.
The answer won’t always be yes, but the lines of communication will always be open.
In a world where we’re all SOLD TO more often than we’d like, in a world where listening to others is rare, in a world where no one wants to be told what to do, fundraising success belongs to the curious.
So stop talking so much. Learn to ask better questions. Give people time to respond. Work on being comfortable with silence. Truly listen to people.
Stay curious my friends.
That’s when the magic happens.