There’s a conversation that happens in the fundraising sector that I’ve been mulling over for a while now.

It goes something like this. Times are hard. Donors are struggling. We shouldn’t be asking right now. It doesn’t feel right.

I’ve heard it from experienced fundraisers, from boards, and I’ve even caught myself thinking it. And when I was a new fundraiser, I took it at face value. As a sign of empathy, of good instincts, of putting the donor first.

I don’t believe that anymore.

We’ve been here before

The fundraising sector has spent the last several years reckoning with saviorism in our copy and the way we write about the people our nonprofits exist to serve.

We realised that when we describe beneficiaries as helpless, as dependent, as people who need rescuing, we aren’t just getting the language wrong. We’re making an assumption about who they are, what they’re capable of, and whether they have any power in their own story. And we’re dressing that assumption up as care.

The work of untangling that has been hard and uncomfortable but so important.

What I can’t help but see now is: we do the same thing to our donors.

We decide not to ask because we’ve decided our donors can’t afford it, or won’t want to hear from us, or are too worried about the economy right now. We’re making a decision on their behalf.

We are assuming we know what they want, what they can give, and how they feel about their own money. And we’re calling it empathy.

It isn’t empathy. It’s an assumption dressed up as one.

What we’re actually afraid of

Rhea Wong, who has spent twenty years in the nonprofit sector as a fundraiser, executive director, and now coach, talks about the money stories we carry into our work. The beliefs you might have formed when you were growing up that:

• money is scarce,
• asking is imposing,
• people who have money are different from us.

“We make decisions for people based on our own assumptions about who they are, and their capacity, and what is happening with them,” she said in a workshop for Fundraisingology Lab members. “Don’t make decisions for people. Let them make decisions.”

What she’s describing isn’t a donor problem. It’s a fundraiser problem. The reluctance to ask isn’t coming from a deep knowledge of what our donors need. It’s coming from our own discomfort: with money, with rejection, with asking. The donor gets used as the reason. But the fear is ours.

And fear makes us paternalistic. It makes us decide that our donors are more fragile than they are and less able to handle an honest ask. We treat them the way saviorist copy treats beneficiaries. As people who need protecting from their own circumstances, rather than people capable of making their own decisions

What your donors are actually doing when they give

Professor Jen Shang, who pioneered the field of philanthropic psychology, has spent years studying why people give and what happens to them when they do. Her research shows that for many donors, giving isn’t a financial transaction. It’s an expression of who they are. It connects to their identity, to the relationships they value, to their sense of what kind of person they want to be in the world.

When someone gives to your cause, they aren’t reluctantly parting with money. They’re doing something that matters to them. Something that, according to Jen’s research, contributes to their psychological wellbeing, their sense of competence, autonomy, and connection.

When we stop asking because we’ve decided they probably can’t give right now, we aren’t protecting them. We’re removing an opportunity that was theirs to take or leave. We made the decision for them before they had a chance to make it themselves.

Since when was that our call to make?

What donors actually need from us

Ask clearly and honestly, and with enough respect to let donors say yes or no for themselves.

Tell them what’s happening: with your nonprofit, with the people you serve, with the gap between what you have and what you need.

The evidence from every difficult moment the sector has fundraised through in recent times is consistent. Donors show up when you ask. Not all of them. But more than you’d expect, and more than you’d get if you’d said nothing at all.

They need us to trust them with the truth, and then get out of the way.

The donors who give through tough times are being exactly who they’ve been all along. Generous people, who care about your cause, who were just waiting to be asked.

We were the ones who forgot that.

Before you decide for them

Next time you find yourself thinking “we shouldn’t ask right now,” stop for a moment and ask whose discomfort you’re actually managing. If the honest answer is yours, that’s useful information.

Your donors are adults. They can read the news. They know what the world looks like right now. And they give to you anyway, because they believe in what you do. That belief didn’t disappear. You might have just stopped giving them the chance to act on it.

If this post has you thinking about how you are communicating with donors right now, our free guide is a good next step.

Download Fundraising in Tough Times: 5 Things Smart Fundraisers Do When the World Gets Uncertain. It’s practical, it’s grounded in evidence, and it’s free.

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