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Stop Apologizing for the Ask: Lessons from Henri Nouwen
51 Plays26 days ago
Early in his career, a colleague looked at Tom Dauber's resume and said: "I guess you won't be able to scare people with the threat of hell anymore, will you?" Tom didn't have a response. He just absorbed it.
Years later, he found the words he wished he'd had -- in a 60-page book by a Catholic priest named Henri Nouwen. In this episode, Tom walks through the ideas in A Spirituality of Fundraising that reframe the ask entirely. Whether or not faith is your framework, Nouwen's core argument applies: fundraising is the opposite of begging, your anxiety is your biggest obstacle, and the fundraiser who walks in needing the gift has already lost the room.
This one is for any fundraiser who has ever felt embarrassed to ask.
Looking for fundraising coaching? Check out www.abundantvision.net
Buy Nouwen's Fundraising Classic Here: https://www.amazon.com/Spirituality-Fundraising-Henri-Nouwen/dp/0835810445/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1NJOO4TQMKEOJ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.hejcFfRXDXR3448Y8xHqqt8DhXxj8GRkoiGOBd_qHzZHo5w_-poNrQiw-pTmiZSYZLC3YovvbhreEKuaZsHdJmG1V94ttTaG3dY-Ii1AiujbieZ0pc18xKZveHlTto0GFqknqBtHZDq37vaQGchiC9DRrwHLLsJJhOOLD-oLZQOM93r0Hcy3ZT1UJwJ99iXGlCZH5R6E4BCkBTgxX7rjMj48pOUPnVlylRj6kSfe6o0.w_OGtHa3tdE6Zp7juEPWDjIq5uKTXe6B7qlMkwWizco&dib_tag=se&keywords=a+spirituality+of+fundraising&qid=1777665208&sprefix=a+spiritu%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-1
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Transcript
Introduction to the Abundant Vision Fundraising Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Abundant Vision Fundraising Podcast. Whether you are a seasoned professional or a first-time fundraiser, we have the advice you need to take your next step toward major gift mastery.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm your host, Tom Dauber, President of Abundant Vision Philanthropic Consulting.
Exploring Faith-Based Fundraising
00:00:25
Speaker
In this episode, want to talk a little bit about faith-based fundraising.
00:00:31
Speaker
That's not everybody's cup of tea There's lots of fundraising that goes on for all sorts of different ah types of causes in the world. And I know amongst my listeners, I've got people from every worldview, probably most religions, um and even irreligious people.
00:00:51
Speaker
All that being said is I think there's important lessons to learn from the religious perspective when we're talking about fundraising. But at the same time, I wanted to talk about some things that were distinctly faith-flavored in today's episode.
00:01:07
Speaker
So that's not your bag, go ahead, feel free to tune out. But hopefully you can stick around and learn a few things, even if it's not your perspective.
Henry Nowen's Spiritual Approach to Fundraising
00:01:18
Speaker
Regardless, um one of the guys who really shaped my understanding from a theological perspective is a guy named Henry Nowen.
00:01:31
Speaker
but But he's a Catholic priest. Now, I'm not Catholic. I'm i'm Protestant. But and nonetheless, there's a lot of commonalities when we think about fundraising from a faith-based perspective. I wouldn't even limit that just within the world of Christianity. I mean, I would think even about Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, all the religions, really.
00:01:56
Speaker
There are certain things we all agree on. we I think most of us would agree, ah most religions would agree that doing good now is beneficial somehow from a spiritual perspective, whether that's in your spiritual growth or investments in the afterlife, one might say.
00:02:21
Speaker
ah There's lots of different ways to to look at it, and certainly all those worldviews don't agree on the specifics of But I think we we all agree that giving is a good thing. Helping those around us is a positive thing.
00:02:36
Speaker
When that's the case, there's a certain perspective you can take as a fundraiser. And so I wanted to just take a minute to just review some of my favorite things from Henry's book that I often teach, especially when I'm dealing with um faith-based nonprofits.
Fundraising as Spiritual Growth
00:02:58
Speaker
You know, i think I think the thing with Henry ah that I really appreciate is that, you know, he boils down fundraising, not to the dollars and cents, but to the impact that it has on the heart of the donor.
00:03:21
Speaker
And not just the donor, but the fundraiser as well. He used the difficulty of fundraising, the challenge of fundraising, as a place to pull us closer to God um in our dependence upon him.
00:03:35
Speaker
And he also looks at it as a place to pull the donor closer to God, as their giving calls them deeper into that relationship. Now, Henry was, yeah, not French. He was Dutch.
00:03:50
Speaker
ah He was a Catholic priest. He was also a Harvard professor. and one of the most beloved spiritual kind of devotional writers of the 20th century.
00:04:00
Speaker
So even though he wasn't a fundraiser by trade, ah he wrote this small book, about 60 pages about fundraising. And found it incredibly powerful.
00:04:13
Speaker
mean, if you only have a short amount of time and you want to read something about fundraising that will change your perspective about it, read this. It doesn't take very long.
00:04:26
Speaker
And I just wanted to take today to revisit it, to look at it a little bit with you.
Visionary Fundraising vs. Begging
00:04:32
Speaker
I think the first thing that he brings up, and again, this is true whether you're someone who's raising money from a faith-based perspective or raising money know from a secular perspective, fundraising is not begging.
00:04:45
Speaker
In fact, it's the opposite of that. um And he makes that claim right up front. He argues that fundraising is the opposite of begging.
00:04:56
Speaker
He says, when we seek to raise funds, we're not saying, please, could you help us out because lately it's been hard or because we have a need, right? It's because we have a vision that's amazing and exciting.
00:05:11
Speaker
We're inviting you to invest yourself through the resources God's given you. your energy, your prayers, your money, and the work that God has called us.
00:05:22
Speaker
If all you do is read his book and walk away with that, if you look at the rest of it and say, hey, I don't like that religious stuff, that's fine. Or if you're a Protestant, you don't like Catholic stuff, it doesn't matter.
00:05:34
Speaker
If you just get that much from it, that's super valuable. If you're a fundraiser and you're walking into a meeting feeling bad about yourself, Nervous, afraid, embarrassed even.
00:05:50
Speaker
You've already undermined your ask before your donor can open their mouth. Now he wants us to stand up and to believe in what we're doing and to believe that we have something worth offering.
00:06:04
Speaker
Now, oftentimes I talk about this, even from a secular standpoint, of just being centered in what you're doing as a fundraiser, to know the value of it, to believe in it.
00:06:16
Speaker
Well, if you're doing faith-based work, that's even more important because we're talking about ah eternal things, things that last forever, things that will make a difference in the lives of people.
00:06:30
Speaker
And so that's that's the first one there, that fundraising is the opposite of begging.
Fundraising as Joyful Ministry
00:06:34
Speaker
Now, point two, this is a great one. And I'll tell you, there was a time where I was presenting to a group of pastors, all of whom were familiar with Nowen.
00:06:46
Speaker
And I put a quote up by him. um And it basically said, I'm not going to quote him directly, but he basically said that fundraising is as spiritual as preaching the gospel feeding the poor.
00:07:02
Speaker
putting on a church service, something along those lines. And I put that quote up there. And I said to the group of pastors I was talking to, said to them, okay, what are your thoughts on this quote by Henry Nowen?
00:07:21
Speaker
And a pastor raised their hand, looked at me and said, Henry Nowen didn't say that. Oh, oh I think I had the same reaction. I think I laughed.
00:07:36
Speaker
He indeed did. He did. He did. That was his view.
00:07:42
Speaker
He argues that that fundraising, when it's grounded in prayer and undertaken in gratitude, should really be seen as a ah form of ministry where we joyfully are inviting others to invest in something special for God with their money, right? Right.
00:08:01
Speaker
This is where faith-based organizations especially sometimes have a blind spot. They treat fundraising as a necessary inconvenience, something the development office handles so that the real ministry can happen.
00:08:17
Speaker
Now one collapses that distinction entirely. Asking is ministry. I mean, if you're a person of faith, if you believe in an afterlife,
00:08:29
Speaker
you probably believe that when we get into the afterlife, we're going to have a different perspective on what values and what matters, but that many of the mundane things of this world that we're so distracted by won't matter as much.
00:08:44
Speaker
Now, that's that's certainly the Christian worldview. that's If that's your belief, if that's what you think is true, when you're asking someone to give to a good thing, to make a positive difference in this world,
00:08:59
Speaker
And they say yes. They're going to be super glad they did that in the next life. Whatever positive investment it seems to be now will be magnified many times over in the next life.
00:09:13
Speaker
I mean, think of it this way. Will I be happier in the next life in eternity? that I went to some fancy restaurants, dropped thousands of dollars on food that I ate and excreted out hours later?
00:09:30
Speaker
or will I be happier that i spent that thousand dollars on feeding the poor or or promoting the faith in a way that's meaningful and helpful, right?
00:09:43
Speaker
Certainly, most of us coming from a faith perspective would believe, mean, I have good meals. I love food. But ultimately, helping those around me is of more value than having a really expensive meal, right?
00:09:59
Speaker
So in that way, I'm doing them a favor. As a fundraiser, I'm helping them invest in something that they're going to be really happy they invested in down the road, right?
Monetary Anxiety and Reliance on Faith
00:10:12
Speaker
Fundraising is ministry. It's not a distraction from it. um Now, another point that Henry makes that I think is really important for any fundraiser, regardless of whether or not, again, you're a secular person or a person of faith, right?
00:10:31
Speaker
Your security cannot be in money. This is probably Nowen's hardest challenge and the one a lot of fundraisers might skip over. He argues that only when we're free from money can we freely ask others to give to it.
00:10:49
Speaker
Give, yeah, sorry, freely ask others to give it. This is the conversion kind of talks in in religious terms to which fundraising as ministry calls us.
00:11:02
Speaker
So what he's getting at is if if your sense of worth your job security, your anxiety level in donor meetings is tied to whether or not the gift comes in.
00:11:15
Speaker
You're not free. And donors can feel anxiety. I mean, you may have heard the phrase before, nobody likes a desperate salesperson, right?
00:11:25
Speaker
um And that's true of fundraisers too. The fundraiser who needs the gift communicates need. The fundraiser who is free from the outcome communicates vision.
00:11:38
Speaker
Now one says the inner work of being free from money and dependence upon it ah is really pre prerequisite, the prerequisite to the outer ask.
00:11:51
Speaker
You might think about it this way. If anxiety and fear are the things that are driving me, I'm going to have a scarcity mindset.
00:12:04
Speaker
If I'm driven by vision and passion, that's exciting. If I'm excited and passionate about what might be, I'm not focused on fear.
00:12:19
Speaker
I'm not a slave to anxiety. I'm focused on abundance. I'm focused on an abundant vision, in fact.
00:12:32
Speaker
That's what we need. We need to be free of that anxiety. about money And I know that that can be hard and that can be scary. Now, I'll tell you this, too. And now this may be more of a faith based conversation.
00:12:45
Speaker
only part of the messaging here in the podcast today. But but if you are a Christian, if if that's your worldview, if that's your background, where you're coming from, working in ministry, raising money for ministry, an important part of of your belief is that God is your provider, that that he's going to give you everything you need.
00:13:04
Speaker
And that's something that can be a challenge to rest in. Now, that does that mean that Christian nonprofits never struggle with money or that they never have to cut staff because they always have the money they need?
00:13:21
Speaker
Well, that's that's certainly not true. you know I've seen Christian nonprofits do a bad job of fundraising. I've seen Christian nonprofits that probably didn't need to exist.
00:13:34
Speaker
I'm not telling you that... You don't need to have anxiety because God will always help you make your budget. What I'm saying is that a Christian perspective on fundraising would agree that God's involved in the process.
00:13:49
Speaker
Multiple ways. ah That if you're doing a great job, if your ministry is doing important work, that you're depending on God, that you know, and God wants you to exist, you will continue to have the budget you need, the funding that you need.
00:14:05
Speaker
At the same time, you know, if there's other things that God has for you, ah if he's going to provide in some other way outside of even working at that nonprofit, you know, even if that nonprofit stops existing, he's still got your back.
00:14:22
Speaker
He's still going to provide for you. And you don't have to, you don't have to, you really live in a place of anxiety. God wants you to live in a a place of peace, really is the Christian teaching.
00:14:38
Speaker
And certainly, we we don't want to make money a God, ah because that just doesn't help you.
Gratitude and Relationship Building in Fundraising
00:14:47
Speaker
Another point that Henry made that I think is super important is approaching fundraising in the spirit of gratitude.
00:14:55
Speaker
Now one writes, that we do so knowing that God has already given us what we most need for life in abundance. Therefore, our confidence in our mission and vision and our freedom to love the person to whom we're talking about donating money do not depend on how that person responds.
00:15:18
Speaker
In this way, gratitude allows us to approach a fundraising meeting without grasping neediness. and to leave it without resentment or dejection when we don't get the gift.
00:15:31
Speaker
Nor do we want to act like it's the most important thing in the world when we do close the gift. Sometimes fundraisers leave carrying, you know, feelings of personal rejection.
00:15:45
Speaker
And you don't want that as a fundraiser. You're not going to last as a fundraiser if you take everything personally. Now, Nowen also extended his argument beyond the fundraiser and what they're centered, right?
00:16:01
Speaker
And into where the donor is centered, right? For those who have funds, he would say, opportunities for, the term he uses, conversion, but you might also say just fundraising.
00:16:17
Speaker
a deeper following of God, right? Related to their sense of power, ah their sense of influence, security, and even the control that money gives them.
00:16:29
Speaker
Now one was hoping that as a fundraiser ah could give them an opportunity to place more of their trust in God and less of their trust in those other things.
00:16:44
Speaker
He wanted to give them the gift of discovering that they are loved, not because of material wealth, but because of the spiritual value they have had as people in the eyes of God.
00:17:00
Speaker
That's a big reframe in terms of what major gift conversations are. In Christian circles, you'll hear a lot about this, um that you're not just raising money, but you're really offering the donor of an opportunity of spiritual formation.
00:17:21
Speaker
Now, if you do believe that, if you believe that you are truly offering donor an opportunity for an opportunity to stretch themselves spiritually, an opportunity to grow spiritually,
00:17:38
Speaker
You can walk into the room with a different attitude. Like you have something to give, not something to take, right? Now one says this, um I ask for money standing up, not bowing down, because I believe in what I am about.
00:17:57
Speaker
I believe that I have something important to offer. I think that's an attitude that's important for every fundraiser, regardless of your faith background.
00:18:08
Speaker
If you're serving nonprofit that you believe in, that you believe has value to this world, you should walk into the room believing you have something important to offer.
00:18:20
Speaker
If you don't, that's a thing to struggle with. This is a thing to think about. Another neat thing that Nalan talked about was how fundraising can build community. ah he connects fundraising to what Jesus called the kingdom of God.
00:18:36
Speaker
That is that a gift doesn't just fund a program. It creates new relationships between the giver, the organization, and the mission. The goal was for donors to feel they are contributing to important love-building work, not just giving to those in need.
00:18:57
Speaker
I think he would argue that generosity, if it's done right, would draw people closer together rather than simply extracting resources from them.
00:19:09
Speaker
And I think that's an important thing for us to think about in our own work. Again, whether it's faith-based or not, there are nonprofits around the country.
00:19:21
Speaker
where the donors don't know each other, they don't know the people they're helping, they don't feel really a sense of kinship or connection ah with the people they're joined with.
00:19:32
Speaker
but But giving joins us. Giving joins us into a cause. And if we're part of a cause and part of a movement, then we have compatriots, people that are joining together with us to help make a difference in the world.
00:19:48
Speaker
And it's important that as fundraising professionals, we try to think of ways to bring those people together. And certainly along with staff, but also even with the people that they're helping.
00:20:01
Speaker
um That's an important part of donor relations and stewardship.
Nowen's Practical Impact and La Arche Community
00:20:05
Speaker
So, Nowen wrote this book from his experience personally as a fundraiser.
00:20:12
Speaker
He raised a lot of money, even though his full-time vocation was really writing and ministry as a priest. But the organization he was raising money for, it was a community where people with and and without intellectual ah disabilities, believe was called La Arche, Daybreak. And i'm I'm not good with French, so I'm sure I pronounced that wrong.
00:20:36
Speaker
But they lived together as peers in this community. He really was dependent on God ah for that provision through fundraising. He believed that God would provide.
00:20:49
Speaker
And through community and through the generosity of the people he approached. And that's that's where his authority comes from. Not just religious authority, right? But he was practiced in this work and did it for many, many years. And he did it successfully.
00:21:11
Speaker
I'll never forget um as a young fundraiser. It was my first job outside of the faith-based world. And I was meeting with different leaders in my organization as part of my orientation.
00:21:24
Speaker
And this leader said to me, upon looking at my resume and understanding where I'd come from, oh, I guess you won't be able to raise money by scaring people with the threat of hell anymore, will you?
00:21:39
Speaker
And it was so demeaning and so insulting. that this person viewed faith-based fundraising as arm twisting with the threat of hell, that that's what faith-based fundraising was about.
00:21:56
Speaker
And I've never forgotten that experience because it was just really hurtful and really reflected a deep ignorance of what our work is.
00:22:06
Speaker
And um I'm so grateful to Nowen for just the contrast between that perspective and how clearly and how succinctly he was able to really describe what Christian fundraising, what faith-based fundraising should really be.
00:22:27
Speaker
So if you've never read a faith-based fundraising book, I highly recommend taking a look at this one because it's really special.
00:22:40
Speaker
It's really short. It can really transform the way you think about fundraising.
Podcast Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:22:47
Speaker
So thank you. Grateful to have some time with you to talk about this book that's been important to me in my life as a fundraiser.
00:22:58
Speaker
And if you liked more of this faith-based material, please let me know. Make some comments on Spotify or what have you. I'd love to get your feedback.
00:23:10
Speaker
Now, if you've enjoyed this podcast, please be sure to subscribe and give us a five-star rating on your podcast provider. I'm your host, Tom Daubert. Thank you for joining me as we journey together towards major gift mastery on the Abundant Vision Fundraising Podcast.