How to Get a Donor to Give: The Magic Switch

What do donors want, and do we, or should we, care? If we come back from a donor pitch meeting with a gift, haven’t we succeeded?

Isn’t the donor meeting just the means to an end (i.e. the “sale”)? When a fundraiser reports back on a donor meeting, are they congratulated on beginning a relationship with the donor, or do accolades only come based on the binary result — did you get a gift, or not? This common response of relationship being less important than getting a gift is holding us back from...