Fundraising for Executive Directors

Excerpt from World According to Sharam Kohan’s article “Fundraising Guide for Executive Directors“:

“In this article, I am going to write about fundraising or as you probably think of it the other “F” word. If you want to change the world you have to know how to pay for it. I’m not talking about being a good person. You can do that for free. I’m talking about if you want to create something, start something galvanize a community, improve the lives of others run for office. Every day great ideas die on the vine because they don’t have the capital to get off the ground and all of the work, the thought, the vision that goes into the idea isn’t worth much if you can’t pay your bills and while most of the greatest social movements in history were powered purely by an idea and people’s belief in that idea real change in impact require resources. Real people do this work, they need real change, real impact, and resources to actually make it happen. The people that believe in this work have to have the support and the resources to do it. That’s where I come in. I get essential resources into the hands of people and visionaries on the front lines doing work that matters.

We spend the majority of our waking hours working. We spend more time working than we do with our loved ones. So, I decided early on that I have to love my work and it has to add value and while I would love to be one of these people who spearhead the social change from the ground up and the thing I realized early on in my nonprofit career is that the thing I’m good at the thing I’m really good at is raising money and I love it. I think it is a privilege to work alongside bold ambitious optimistic leaders and organizations. They serve so I teach people how to do the thing I’m good at because the more people that learn how to be good at my end of this work the more work will get done. I teach everyone. I teach CEOs and presidents and boards of directors. I teach development directors and all sorts of teams and nonprofit newbies, social change agents, and candidates. I teach anyone that wants to do something extraordinary. How to fund their dream. My dream is that there will be more people like me doing this work.”