Growing the Soil
Long-term fundraising success is resilience, not results
I’ve been reading about regenerative farming and ranching. I’m fascinated!
In conventional ranching, cattle graze a pasture continuously. Overused pastures can’t keep up, which requires ranchers to bring in hay bales to get the herd to market weight. (I’m sure this is greatly oversimplified, and context determines everything.)
Regenerative ranchers are learning to do it a different way. They no longer see their main goal as raising cattle; their goal is growing the soil. So they ask different questions:
How much rainfall can this pasture absorb?
How dense is the nutrition of diverse plant life in this pasture?
When will this section of grass recover enough to be grazed again?
Grazing is actually a key practice in soil health. Allowing pasture land to recover is a good thing, of course. But being grazed can bring even greater health to the soil. In regenerative ranching, animals are moved around among many small paddocks. Grazing, trampling and manure deposits, followed by long periods of recovery, stimulates microbial activity in the soil. This rhythm increases the soil’s carbon content, the diversity of vegetation, and root depth. Usage and recovery time work together to make good soil!
Healthier soil means lush plant life, equaling highly nutritious meat. It means no fertilizer, no herbicides, less time on the tractor, fewer medications. Farmers say it’s less work, lower cost and more fun.
It’s fascinating to me. And it makes me wonder about our fundraising practices.
Deep roots matter in pastures and in philanthropy
When development vice presidents talk about their fundraising programs, they often tell stories of:
An aging, shrinking pool of donors.
Ever-increasing institutional pressure to raise annual support.
Staff tenures averaging fewer than five years.
This sounds a bit like an overused and weary operation.
It’s easy to make a diagnosis:
“What your program needs is more donor acquisition!”
“You must focus on retention! More storytelling!”
“Be relational and sustainable, not transactional.”
Sounds groovy. But how? How do you program these changes? Will the administration expect their fundraisers to do less of something? Perhaps to measure something different? (You get what you measure, right?) Maybe (gasp!) raise less money…or at least, not more than last year?
The hardest thing about change-making is “vertical integration” — aligning your weekly work with your long-term goals. I would not presume to make recommendations — your context is unique. Here are a few concepts to consider:
Look hard at your incentives. If your leadership claims to be all about the donor experience but gift officers are evaluated solely on proposals and gifts received, there’s a disconnect. Try out different ideas each year! You can afford to, if you…
Think long-term. Deep roots matter in pastures and in philanthropy. That’s why staff turnover is so costly, and just might indicate a problem. In a healthy ecosystem, quarterly and annual goals are short-term thinking. Resist! The true measure of long-term health is not results, but resilience — how things work year-over-year, in sub-optimal conditions. Numbers alone don’t tell the story.
Geek out. Be curious about your ecosystem. Become the expert at what works in your ecosystem. Define success, measure and record. Survey your grassroots donors!
Whatever you do, involve others in the work of regeneration: share your definitions, your goals, the data and the stories. This builds your ecosystem.
I would never tell a rancher how to do their job, nor do I know yours. I would like to know what you think. Share the things you’re doing, and the things you’ve quit doing. Are today’s development leaders building healthier ecosystems? Are you?
The editor of “To Be a Fundraiser” is Kelly Wendell, Coodinator of Communication at South Dakota State University.