The endless ask
Every letter, email and conversation eventually turns into another request for money.
Your donors see it coming.
OLD HABITS DIE HARD.LET THEM.
A better way to fund a mission
The old
fundraising
model is dead.
Stop extracting donations.
Start creating champions.
Most nonprofits don’t have a fundraising problem. They have an engagement problem disguised as a fundraising problem.
Take the fundraising autopsy ↗Read the manifesto →The usual suspects
What killed fundraising?
If any of this feels familiar, you’re in the right place.
The disposable donor
You work hard to win people over. Then lose them. Then spend more to replace them.
That’s an expensive goodbye.Random acts of fundraising
A gala here. An appeal there. A new campaign. Plenty of activity, without a shared direction.
Busy isn’t a strategy.The digital filing cabinet
Your database remembers what happened. But does anyone know what should happen next?
Software isn’t a relationship.
The Fundraising Is Dead manifesto
Quit raising money.
Start raising an army.
Your mission deserves people who give a damn. People who give, participate, introduce, advocate and carry it into places you can’t reach alone.
Build that kind of community, and fundraising becomes part of something much bigger.
Donations are events.
Donors are people.
A gift tells you something about a person. It does not tell you everything. Learn what they care about, what they can contribute and why your mission matters to them.
A second donation
isn’t a relationship.
Repeated giving matters. So does participation, trust and ownership. Give people meaningful ways to belong between the times they give.
Every relationship needs
a next action.
A conversation. An introduction. An invitation. A useful update. Know who owns the relationship and what will move it forward.
The mission is bigger
than the money.
Your organization exists because something in the world should be different. Help people make that difference with you.
A quick, honest look under the hood
What’s killing
your fundraising?
Eight questions. Four trouble spots. A practical place to start.
This first-edition self-check reflects your answers, not an audit of your data. No email required. Answers are not submitted or saved.
Less theory. More straight talk.
A few things worth questioning.
Behind the skull
Serious about
the mission.
Done with the routine.
I’m Troy Vanderhule.
I work with nonprofits to connect strategy, fundraising, communication and action. Fundraising Is Dead is where I challenge the habits that get in the way.
The aim is straightforward: help organizations build communities that take ownership of the mission—and do something about it.
Action Orgs is the consulting practice behind this work. The Airplane Assessment takes the diagnosis deeper: if your fundraising team disappeared tomorrow, could the next team pick up where they left off?
Start with your fundraising autopsy →