what inspires YOU?

As you may know, I am hanging out this week in California with my Buddhist homies, which never fails to clarify half my life and confuse the other half…but I digress.

As we embark on that frantic ritual known as year-end fundraising, much attention will be rightly paid to tactical imperatives, like getting the donate page right, hijacking more home page real estate, finding a major donor to offer a match,  etc..  I’ll actually have MORE to say about that in the coming week.  BUT there’s actually something more important than good execution — good INSPIRATION.

Chances are you care deeply about your cause, maybe passionately, but for any one of many reasons you may or may not have let that passion show to your donors and prospects.  Well, here’s a bit of Buddhism fresh from Clear Lake California — in all communications, how you are is more important than what you say.

Giving is as much an emotional act as it is a rational one.  For most people, the emotional part is the driver.  Have you spent the last year showing how excited you are about your organization’s vision and all you are accomplishing?  Have you revealed a bit of your organization’s human-ness, or have you sent them well-edited, cautiously guarded, emotionally sterile copy?

Here’s a non-Buddhist secret — the more your donors care deeply and the more inspired they are, the less likely the tactics will matter.   A great cause can have the world’s worst website and the money will still come rolling in.

How to inspire your audience?  What inspires you?  That’s a good start…