Robin Hood was a good guy, I think. Apart from inspiring a bad Mel Brooks movie and a worse Bryan Adams song, he is credited with piety, generosity, respect for women, and all around athletic prowess. For those of us who work in or with nonprofits, he also represents a bit of a pagan patron saint: taking from the rich, and giving to the poor. Okay, fine– to date, I have never had cause to take to the woods or raid sheriff posses with my Merry Men. Nonetheless, the role of nonprofit fundraisers is strikingly similar to the green-tighted men of yore.
To begin with, nonprofiteers are operating under an antiestablishment assumption: that making other lives easier is a worthy way to spend our own. That our job is not only a way to put food on our own tables, but a way to put our beliefs into action. And– crazier than that– that we prefer to make less money helping others than to work for a company which exists in order to make an honest profit. Where is the capitalism in that?
That is how Robin Hood did it. He valued money only insofar as it could make other lives easier. He and the Merry Men could have done quite well, I suppose, if they had been more directly entrepreneurial and kept their spoils and invested them in some real estate or technology stock. And there would have been nothing wrong with that– who can’t respect a good entrepreneurial spirit? But instead, they saw that some had enough to spare, and others didn’t have enough. Bringing things into balance, helping close the gap between the haves and have nots, if only just a little– this is a mission that almost any nonprofit worker could relate to.
The major difference between fundraisers and Robin Hood, of course, is that nowadays we don’t need to rob and pillage to fund our missions. (This is where OUR story is better than the original!) We actually get to develop relationships with people and organizations who want to donate. We are able to share our passion and our vision with others and find likeminded people who may not want to be Robin Hood as a full-time gig– but who willingly part with their own hard earned money because they want to be a part of the solution. They want to make other lives better, too.
Hence, this blog. It is a call out to all the modern day Robin Hoods out there, drumming up donations and support for their organizations. I’ve been one for over a decade, never regretting it for a minute. (Well, not for more than a minute at a time, on occasion…) I’ll be sharing some tips that I hope will prove useful, and musing aloud to spark some healthy discussion among us. Equally, this blog is for donors. There will be posts by guest bloggers such those in charge of giving for foundations, or individual donors. You know how it is: when deadlines are looming and it seems there isn’t enough time in the day to finish all the urgent tasks in front of you, it is tempting to get a bit closed off from all worlds but our own. Hopefully the voices of those whom we are trying to reach will inspire some new ideas and fresh perspective.
So… get your tights on, then, and join me in the forest. Philanthropy creates powerful stories every day, and ones that are always worth telling. Let’s share them!
