I Am Truly Humbled

Well, the big day has arrived.  The new issue of Fundraising Success magazine finally appeared in my mailbox, and there I am, right on page 20: a "Fundraising Star."

I always find it funny when someone gets a big award and claims to be humbled. What does that mean? Isn't everyone who wins an Oscar or a Nobel Prize really the opposite of humble? Aren't they all proud, exalted and vainglorious?

Well, believe it or not, I am truly humbled.

Two reasons:

1) Even though this news has gone out via email to the Fundraising Success email list at least once, and maybe twice, and has now been mailed across the country in a glossy print publication, I haven't exactly been overwhelmed by congratulatory telegrams. (In other words, I haven't heard a peep from anyone.)

2) I am well aware that every fundraiser is only as good as his or her last fiscal year. I could screw up everything in the coming months. Then I'd really show you humble.

In fact, I'm a pretty superstitious guy, and I'm a little worried that I might start to relax a little.  Have you ever seen a decent fundraiser who looked relaxed?  We're a pretty nervous group.

So all I can do to maintain my aura of appropriate anxiety is keep in mind the lessons of three great nonprofit leaders with whom I've worked:

The first is from Karen Hopkins, my boss when I was at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).  Though I'd been a fundraiser for at least five years before I met Karen, she is my role model when it comes to development work.  And the main thing I learned from her is to follow every lead until it either turns into money or into nothing -- but don't give up until you reach a conclusion.  I'm convinced that we all leave piles of money on the metaphorical table because we get fatigued by the elusiveness of prospects or ambiguity of situations.  Karen doesn't, and I try not to.

The second is from Harvey Lichtenstein, who was Karen's boss for the first few years that she was mine.  Karen quotes Harvey as saying (I'm paraphrasing): "In life, things usually don't work out.  But sometime they do." That quote deserves a post by itself. Because not only do we have to try a lot of things to discover the strategies that succeed, but we have to put up with boldly trying lots of things that fail. In public.

The third is from Reynold Levy, President of Lincoln Center.  Reynold likes to say -- as you could read in his great fundraising book Yours for the Asking -- "In soliciting donors in writing, it is far better to be roughly right, brief and early than perfect, comprehensive and late." That simple adage, which far too many fastidious fundraisers ignore, should be the equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath for Development Directors.  And perhaps even more important, though harder to achieve: "It's the Board of Directors, Stupid."

So, I will once again remind myself to follow those great examples and do my best to live up to my brief moment of glory (hey, my mother is proud), and not go from truly humbled to completely humiliated.

On another note: if you've read this far, thank you!  If you or anyone you know could use a three-day course in fundraising, register for my Weekend Intensive at the end of March.  Use the discount code MattsBlog and save $250.