Bad News is an Opportunity

File this under “counter-intuitive but we’ve seen it so many times it must be true.”

Any time you receive some bad news, it’s a great opportunity to raise money.

Problem in the field and you need more money to finish a project? 

Shortfall at the end of your fiscal year?

“Special case” where more resources are needed to help a person?

Cash flow shortage? 

Piece of equipment breaks?

Grant didn’t come through?

I can speak from experience and say that all these situations, when shared with donors, reliably raise more money than the nonprofit expects.  And they raise that money quickly.  (Email is incredible for this.)

So when a bad situation happens, there’s a choice you can make:

• You can share the situation with your community of donors, be amazed by their generosity, and have more money to solve the problem.  Or…
• You can work on the situation yourself and have less money to solve the problem.

What I’m NOT Saying

I am absolutely not advocating sharing bad news all the time.  You will burn out your donors and erode trust over time.  Your fundraising must contain stories of success and triumph over the course of each year.

But most organizations think themselves into a position where they are scared to share any bad news at all.

What I’m advocating for is never being scared of sharing bad news when it happens.  Because what you’ll see is the generosity of donors, over and over again.

Remember the game show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”  Each contestant had a “lifeline” they could call when they couldn’t solve the problem by themselves.  The next time your organization is in a tough situation, think about your donors as a lifeline. 

Two Conclusions

When you see donors generously respond to “bad news” again and again – two things become obvious over time. 

1. Donors are more likely to respond when they feel needed.
2. You develop the strong belief that your donors can & will be a lot more generous, a lot more often, than you originally think.

If you “live in” to those two ideas – by creating fundraising that helps donors feel needed, and believing that they can give more and more often – over time you will unleash donor generosity and build a group of resilient donors.

And it starts when your organization has the strength to share the occasional piece of bad news with your donors.