{"id":7635,"date":"2017-11-15T11:52:46","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T16:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.globalgiving.org\/learn\/?p=7635"},"modified":"2018-09-19T20:45:51","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T01:45:51","slug":"donors-deserve-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalgiving.org\/learn\/donors-deserve-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Tell Your Donors The Truth? You Should!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you tell your donors the truth?<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Last week, two clients come to me in a panic. <\/p>\n

One was the board chair of a global NGO who had just left a board meeting, recognizing for the first time that she would have to fundraise in order to keep her role. The other was the executive director of a small grassroots theatre company who miscalculated his annual budget and was scrambling to fund a program that started in two weeks. <\/p>\n

Both individuals were frustrated and ready to quit. <\/p>\n

Too often, fundraising and partnerships get put on a back burner because nonprofit staff have to juggle multiple roles. It can lead to unfortunate situations, like the ones mentioned above. Daily, I hear from organizations about how they are struggling to execute all their programmatic goals, yet frustrated that they can\u2019t get more people inspired and involved in their mission to help them do so. How do we stop the cycle and start thinking more clearly about growing and maintaining key relationships? <\/p>\n

Relationships in social change, like in anything else, are based on trust. I find, as I coach and dig deeper, that so often this has been broken down by a collection of \u201chalf-truths\u201d that are spoken daily within the organization. It may also be due to lack of clear vision, confusion around what \u201cmission fulfillment\u201d actually means or denial that change is happening, or needs to happen within the work. <\/p>\n

That shared, if you have acted inauthentically or been misleading in any way with partners or potential partners, you might have them questioning if they can trust you to properly steward their work, wealth, and wisdom. Instead of immediately shouting, \u201cwe need more names!\u201d to hit your goals, maybe start by saying, \u201cwe need to rebuild the trust.\u201d For your organization, this might be in a few subtle, small ways or in one grandiose way, but either case, think on some specific statements you\u2019ve made that have may have broken that trust. <\/p>\n

Here are some scenarios I’ve seen in my career:<\/p>\n