How to Overcome the Money Taboo and Succeed with Fundraising
Most fear of fundraising boils down to two factors:
(1) fear of rejection, and
(2) fear of looking stupid due to insufficient knowledge/skills.
It turns out these fears are relatively easy to overcome. But it requires some serious reframing. A move away from begging and towards offering a gift of opportunity. The opportunity to feel joy, meaning and purpose.
The hard part is overcoming our deep-rooted psychological aversion to talking about money.
Most of us were raised to believe this is impolite. We’d rather talk about anything else.
In fact, many scholars argue money is the number one social taboo in America (see also Krueger, The Last Taboo). Even religion, sex and politics are better discussion topics as far as most of us are concerned. Where money is concerned, we tend to come from a place of “no.”
Alas, people think fundraising is all about money.
Here’s what I mean: Say the word “fundraising” and look at people’s faces. Their mouths will pucker up in a grimace. Their eyes will squinch closed as if in pain. Their brows will furrow. I recently tried this with a board of directors, asking them each to give me the first word they thought of when they thought of fundraising. Here are the (all) negatives:
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