169. The Reluctant Fundraiser’s Guide to Raising Money (+ Tips for Small Nonprofits!) - Cindy Wagman

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Overview

Meet Cindy. She's had a heartfelt goal to unlock the potential of small nonprofits through fundraising. Having spent her entire career in fundraising, Cindy knows how to make it accessible to small nonprofits in a way that is mission-enhancing and empowering. Join us as we break down how to set up small shops for success. There are incredible lessons here for orgs of all sizes, and Cindy's even giving tips on using volunteers to make your life easier. We found a growth mindset friend in Canada, and we are here for all she's teaching🙌

Today’s Guest

Cindy Wagman, Host, The Small Nonprofit, President and CEO, The Good Partnership

“The work that we have to do is start to identify our beliefs around philanthropy and fundraising and even around the nonprofit sector.”

— Cindy Wagman, Host, The Small Nonprofit, President and CEO, The Good Partnership

Episode Transcript

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Episode Highlights

Cindy’s story and journey to where she is today (2:30)
Setting your small shop up for great success (4:00)
How fundraisers, board members, and volunteers are holding their own selves back (8:30)
Best practices for small shops (15:00)
- Align your strategies with where you are
- Start with people who care
- Focus on care over capacity
- Be curious
Cindy’s book: Raise It! The Reluctant Fundraiser’s Guide to Raising Money Without Selling Your Soul (19:00)
- Use Discount code GOOD
The intersection of neuroscience and fundraising (23:00)
A powerful moment of philanthropy in Cindy’s life (34:00)
Cindy’s One Good Thing: Be curious. (37:00)

Powerful quotes

“This story that smaller organizations are telling themselves that fundraising is hard, or icky, or it doesn't work, because we don't have a strong enough brand, these are narratives in our sector and in our minds that are holding us back from achieving the impact we want to have in the world.” -Cindy

“My mission really is to help all those reluctant fundraisers figure out that it's actually a really enjoyable thing, and really empowering activity or profession, and that it's critical to their success.”

“The way our brains are designed is that they create shortcuts that are really sort of embedded into our brain over time as repetition or habit. And so what happens is, we hear stories, or we experience things over and over and over again, to the point where it feels like truth, even if it isn't truth.” -Cindy

“The work that we have to do is start to identify our beliefs around philanthropy and fundraising and even around the nonprofit sector.” -Cindy

“We have these images of what fundraising is by what we see from the outside of organizations. And usually, and I really believe our sector sets us up for this as we think the big is best. And that we think that they're the generators have best practices that we have to then translate to smaller organizations. And I don't believe that I don't think that that's where best practices necessarily have to come from.” -Cindy

“Align your strategy with where you are.” -Cindy

“Strategy is to move you forward. And in order to move forward, you have to understand where you are right now. what resources are available to you? Where is your community? Who are the people who care about your work?” -Cindy

“Fundraising is understanding who cares about your work, and inviting them into an opportunity to invest in that work, and invest in the future that they think is important to them.” -Cindy

“We're too focused on what the donor wants or needs. And it's not that we're, the magic is not in giving up your mission to fulfill what your donor needs, it's finding the points of intersection.” -Cindy

“I see so many organizations think that there's, you know, only so many donors to go around. And so we're competing, or they think that you know, same thing, like our donors only have so much thinking gifts, so we can't ask too much. abundance is a mindset, it is a shortcut in our brains. And we're not built to have an abundance mindset. It is a practice or mindset you need to cultivate. In fact, we're very much built to be risk averse.” -Cindy

“One of the things our brains does is it actually looks for information. It's called confirmation bias, it looks for information to reaffirm our existing beliefs.” -Cindy

“That information reinforces our belief that we're not good at this, which means we're less likely to try, which means we are never going to get good at this. And therefore we're not we get stuck in the cycle. And so it's really important to do this work. Because it's very easy to just get quickly sucked down into not doing anything.” -Cindy

“We have this belief that the communities we serve that we're embedded in, are not able to give, and so we don't ask them as well. And that is a very unempowered thing or disempowering for people.” -Cindy

“It's never up to us to project our own feelings about fundraising and giving to anyone.” -Cindy

Connect with cindy

Website / Podcast / Twitter / LinkedIn / Book / Facebook

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