Exploring fundraising (week of November 18, 2024)
This month I'm dabbling with creating retrospectives that share what I've been learning and doing to explore fundraising careers each week. They will be quick and unpolished.
The week in a sentence:
The excitement and optimism I felt after EAGxVirtual 2024 helped me connect with new people, gather resources, and tackle LinkedIn updates.
Wins and actions:
- Completed my first EAGx conference as a job-seeker.
- Attended my first conference meetup specific to animal advocacy.
- Made significant updates to my LinkedIn profile. Despite considerable aversion in the past, I actually enjoyed the updating process. Looking bak on the range of experiences I've been able to have in my career so far filled me with gratitude and wonder.
- I attended two online workshops related to fundraising: Hive's monthly fundraising call (the topic was DAFs), and a NXUnite panel discussion about data-driven fundraising.
- More broadly, my sense of what fundraising actually is continued to evolve. Now I understand it as building mutually supportive communities of people dedicated to a cause, by fostering relationships that are kind, sincere, brave, mutually beneficial, dynamic, and dare I say fun!?
- I put myself out there by taking up an offer to write up some of my notes and advice on talking with donors, based on my experiences to date in the effective giving space.
Struggles:
- I came out of EAGxVirtual with suggestions a few leads: organizations in the animal advocacy space that might be open to skilled volunteers to help with fundraising. Reaching out to these leads felt challenging, and I haven't (yet). Beyond the garden-variety imposter syndrome, I realized I was challenged by two other factors: The first was a lack of clarity around how much time I want to offer to volunteering, versus self-learning and looking for paid roles. The second factor was a concern that I needed to have more clarity on which types of projects and teams would be a great for me.
- Related to the above, I avoided introducing myself to my network in this new stage of putting myself out there to seek opportunities.
New-to-me resources from this week:
- Rick Holland talking fundraising on the Reducetarian Podcast: I loved this and have listened to it a few times. There was lots in there that shifted my thinking. In particular, I came away feeling less intimidated and more excited about asking for financial support, by reframing that topic as simply one aspect of a holistic, ongoing relationship with a community of supporters that is kept in the loop through ups and downs, on all aspects of a project.
- Hive's Fundraising Wiki for Animal Advocates: A goldmine! Advice, simplified tips to get started, resources, all packaged in an accessible way.
- The Fundraiser School: Via Hive
- Candid Learning webinars on fundraising: Via Hive
- Privilege and Inclusivity in the Vegan Movement: Via K.S.
- Rogare, a fundraising think tank, has a variety of resources and thought pieces:
- Animal Advocacy Careers fundraising career profile and resource list: These are quite thorough. I feel lucky to have access to resources like this that are tailored to animal advocacy work, and that crowdsource experiences from across the movement.