Failing wisely this fundraising season
- Thu, July 08 2010
- Filed under: Fundraising essentials
This is not a terribly original thought, but it’s certainly a critical one: failure is how we learn.
There are times when you will fail as a fundraiser. You will fail as a marketer. You will think you know your audience, you will be certain you know your message, and you will be wrong.
Your audiences aren’t necessarily rational, they aren’t necessarily consistent, and they aren’t necessarily predictable.
Welcome to the imperfection that we all exhibit - and face.
We’re just weeks away from fundraising season, and it’s so easy to go into it cowed and meek. Worried about results, focused on what we might not get, and conservative in our approach. Why? Because we fear failure.
The problem is, fear of failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy - it makes us fail and worse, it makes us fail foolishly. It makes us safe and boring (not good), too focused on extracting value from donors instead of offering them the chance to make a difference (not good), and so focused on the downside of missed targets that we fail to embrace their gifts: what they teach us (also not good). For example, if an email bombs - and you use an email campaign tool - at least you know what didn’t work and why. That insight is gold. Better to have a big failure that yields insights than an unimaginative campaign with crappy results that net no knowledge at all.
Listening to my seven-year-old screech her way through violin practice tonight - after crying that nothing was perfect the first go-round - and then screeching once again, with a few good notes and satisfaction in her own persistance, I was reminded the best we can do is press on, boldly test, critically examine, and reflectively learn. Look at missteps - if they happen - as useful guidance as to where the right path may lie.
Iin the important months ahead, be brave in your outreach, boldly giving to your donors, and most of all, generous with yourself. Don’t be fearful in your practice as a fundraiser - it will only lessen your results and limit your understanding.
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Comments
You absolutely right. Perseverance pays. Pressing on is the only choice before us to succeed. I can quote a lot from my life. An article like this boosts one’s confidence. Failure is a myth as far as I am concerned. It is a temporary obstruction in our way. If we could press on we will cross the barrier and will be successful
Hi,
The idea of learning from failure may not be very original but as the French say, the more things change the more they stay the same! So why not learn the lessons of the past rather than invent yet another new theory to explain things? Unfortunately, most people think of failure as negative - but that’s only true if you give up and don’t learn from what you’ve found out doesn’t work.
Edison said something like he’d successfully identified and eliminated 1000 ways that didn’t allow his light bulbs to work so therefore he was 1000 steps nearer his goal!
Nobody, but nobody succeeds first time at anything worth doing!
So the secret has to be to put the effort into things that really are worth doing, like fundraising for example and making it work by persistently trying new tactics rather than either giving up or making the sames mistakes again and again!
Chris
Appreciate your confidence! Keep pressing on
<a > Frank</a>
I agree with what you said, failure is how we learn. If we fail then we should not be discouraged but continue to move on. Failure is actually an opportunity for success.
Failure gives an opportunity to show your character. There’s nothing great when everything is good in your life, it’s only when one bounces back from the lows of life, that one’s true charcater shows.
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This is so true. As a matter of fact, my Bible verse for the day was Proverbs 15:22 Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.
I agree with you. It doesn’t matter if you’re focusing on a product, a service, your friend’s self-esteem, or trying to get your foot in the door for a new job, when you speak into your future in a positive manner, and practice gratitude, you can turn any unpleasant circumstance into an opportunity to help someone else.
Failure has the word *lure* in it…can you see the possibilities that can *lure* you into a better situation if you choose to turn your back on the other part of the word called fail?
Failure is definitly the key to success. The way I look at it is, if you do nothing you have failed, therefore enable to accomplish something you must do something. There you go, the first lesson you learned from failure is to do someting. So you do something and that something is I want to raise money, so I choose a target market, well that didn’t work and I did something and still failed. I choose another target market and still haven’t raised money so I failed again. So I choose another and another and another and still haven’t raised any money. Frustrastion is setting in and losing motivation due to failure, I asked myself why but I don’t know, I asked others why and I get some responses that I haven’t thought of, so I asked more and more and more why and I get different reasons and more answers. So after failing so much, what I learned from my failures is I didn’t do any research. After doing a little research I saw some results, my confidence grew and before you know it I was succeeding
That is right failure is a learning experience. You just learned one way of not doing something
there is nothing wrong with failure…...but only if you learn from it!If you learn from it,you will be stronger,if you dont learn from it,you will be a weaker person who will just make the same mistakes again and again.
This is why core confidence is important and crucial in the business and in life in general. So if you’re not deeply rooted in your own beliefs, then that fear of failure will always be there. But you know what? You won’t get anywhere unless you TAKE ACTION. Go ahead. Make mistakes. And as David said, it’s okay as long as you learn from your past mistakes
Over coming the fear of failure is usually what separates the successful for the rest of us
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