Last Tuesday, (March 8), I wrote about how easy it is to buy things...I called them Silver Bullets for fund raisers. Rather than first doing the heavy lifting of developing a well thought out plan leading to a strategic solution, instead, we tend to buy something that we hope will solve our immediate problem.
The other day I was talking to a Chief Operating Officer (COO) of a large missionary organization and he said, “We think we know what the problem is, but, how do we get the answer?”
Don’t we all do that? Don’t we all want to jump to the answer as if it is a cookie cutter tactic or thing that will solve our immediate pain?
I don’t think this is a Baby Boomer instant gratification reaction; rather, I believe it is an emotional reaction by really good people to the speed of change that is coming at us and the pressure to have immediate answers.
But, here is the deal...RESIST with all your might the pressure to jump to Silver Bullets.
What is coming at us today is WAY bigger than anything you have experienced in your fund raising career. Or, for that matter, way bigger than anything to hit fund raising since the inception of your community or organization.
Think I am kidding? How about the biggest change in over 550 years...since the Gutenberg printing press.
We are quickly moving out of what they call the “analog” world (printed ink on paper) and into the “digital” world of electronic forms of communication.
It isn’t that we don’t know this is happening; the problem is we really don’t know all of the IMPLICATIONS for our organization of this shift. And it is those “implications” that can lead to unintended consequences of the bad kind...unless...we thoughtfully draw back and develop a new strategic direction incorporating the best of what we do today with the new technological opportunities that are all around us.
Has your fund raising group updated its strategic plan in the last five years? Have you ever done a strategic plan in your fund raising group? Well, my take is that if a 550-year event doesn’t call for a new strategic vision of how you fund raise...I don’t know what does.
-Mike
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