The founding father of relationship fundraising – Ken Burnett – is among the leading practitioners helping Rogare to review and ‘refashion’ the discipline he formulated more than 20 years ago.
Forty fundraisers and consultants/suppliers have joined Burnett on the advisory group for Rogare’s first major project. Though mainly from the US and UK, the group contains representatives from organisations based in Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Ireland, Switzerland and Thailand.
The advisory group will support the review by providing insights into what they perceive to be the strengths and weaknesses of relationship fundraising, and how they think it will need to adapt to future challenges.
Once Rogare has identified relevant ideas from social psychology and relationship marketing, the advisory group will then brainstorm how these could be applied to fundraising.
Ken Burnett said he was pleased to see the review going ahead, adding that it “couldn’t be in better hands”:
“I’m glad to see that Rogare is asking tough questions. If the thinking behind relationship fundraising isn’t robust it doesn’t deserve to prosper – I think it is, or it wouldn’t have found favour for so long.
“While I have anxieties and expectations as to the outcome, I don’t have rose-tinted specs. I’m not yet daring to hope that Rogare and the advisory group will find an answer to the real dilemma that’s at the core of relationship fundraising – given we’ve been talking about this thing for the best part of a quarter of a century, why are more donors not showing signs of experiencing the joy of giving (or when they do, why is it that so much of that joy is despite rather than because of fundraising?).”
Visit Rogare’s website to see who has joined the advisory group.
Rogare is still looking for fundraisers working at US nonprofits to join the advisory group: anyone with views about relationship fundraising who wishes to be considered should contact Rogare’s Ian MacQuillin.
The relationship fundraising review is jointly funded by US donor management software company Bloomerang and American fundraising agency Pursuant.
Critical Fundraising 