Who Is Shining?

You know games like Monopoly or Uno or Exploding Kittens?  Well, of the Top 5 best-selling games in the world right now, three of them were created by one guy. 

His name is Elan Lee.  He is one of the top “game designers” of our generation. 

And here’s what Elan said recently when talking about creating games:

“We do not make games that are entertaining.  We make games that make the players entertaining.”

Read that quote again.  Seriously.  I had to read it three times before I really understood that second sentence. 

He wants players to have the feeling of, “I was fun to be with, and the people I played with were fun” – not “that game is so fun.”  He knows that if the players feel great about themselves when playing the game, they will want to play again.

Put another way, he wants the people playing the game to shine, not the game itself. 

This idea perfectly maps over to fundraising.

Think about your organization’s fundraising to individual donors for a second.  And think about your donors as “the people playing your game.”  Does your fundraising make the people playing your game shine, or does your fundraising make your organization shine?

For instance, is your fundraising to individual donors mostly about your organization, mostly about the great things you’ve already done, and then asks your donors to support your work?  If so, you’re making your organization shine.

But fundraising to individual donors is a lot like human relationships: if you can make someone feel good about themselves, they are likely to feel good about you.

Helping a person feel and be great is a surer path to relationship than telling them that you are great.

There are millions of people playing Elan Lee’s games because he designed the games to make the players shine.  If you’d like to have more people donating to your organization, design your fundraising to help your donors shine.