Don’t Proud of One’s Heritage

(Your Previous Success and Long History May Not Able to Help You in the Future)

Following my post last month, there is another myth, if not misjudging; that is fairly commonly found among small to medium-sized nonprofits.

They are reminiscing fondly about the good old days. How long it has established, who and who distinguished philanthropist founded the organization, who and who government official or celebrity have supported them or be their patron, what and what campaigns that they launched years ago. No, I cannot deny the importance of such accomplishments, which is truly something worth celebrating. After all, it is not easy for a nonprofit to have 50 or 60 years under its belt, let alone serving the society for a century. Or that the support by so and so is genuinely a remarkable endorsement of how wonderful the organization was in delivering its service. While preceding campaigns are evidential track record in demonstrating the organization’s success. But put yourself into the shoes of your supporters, do you really believe these are something they honestly care about the most? If not, what do you think are of their interests? May it be a grant-maker, a high net worth individual, corporations, other potential donors, volunteers, and alike. I am not suggesting you get rid of mentioning such information entirely, but my point is you have to prioritise and think and plan carefully whether such information should be something worth to be put upfront with so much emphasis on your introductory speech, pitch, organization literature.

In fact, countless researches are reminding us that people are far more captivated about the good new days to come. As mentioned in my last post, people fascinated to be a hero in making the world a better place for all of us to live and hence along this line they are concerned about how they could be part of the winning team in bringing such good new days into life. This is because of the expectation of fulfilling one’s need for self-actualization as suggested by Maslow’s Need Hierarchy. After realizing the four lower-level needs on the hierarchy, namely physiological needs, safety needs, belonging and love needs and esteem needs, people tend to go into the direction of trying to seek self-fulfilment that leads to a new focus on helping others. Or in a less academic or more layman way in describing it as seeking to feel good of oneself. So while what has been achieved is good, even great; people don’t get the feel-good feeling as they are not part of those prior triumphs. Therefore, whenever you are doing your pitch, introducing your organization to new friends, put it on your organizational literature or a grant proposal, make sure you catch their attention forthright by painting a clear picture of what good new days can anticipate through the meaningful work of your organization and how they could become a partner in this meaningful journey, for example working with, donating to, or volunteering for your organization, etc. Once you have got their attention and feel the feeling towards your organization and the cause you are after, they will then showing their keenness in knowing more of you. It is then the more appropriate time to share with them some of your previous success stories and background.

Remember, I have no intention to stop you from sharing who you are, what you did, but just to remind you about the priority in determining what to go first in the hope to enlarge the pool of your supporters and supports ultimately and help build another tens or hundreds years of success at your organization.