Who knows whether this pandemic will produce a merely difficult or a truly dreadful future for fundraising.

Will the surprisingly strong results many organizations are currently experiencing continue or will they drastically diminish as the economic meltdown predicted by most experts ensues?  There’re a hundred variations of this question.  At this stage there are no answers.

One outcome I’m certain of.  Fundraising mindsets,  plans and practices will change.

I also believe this is the perfect time to get busy thinking and learning about options for constructing (re-constructing) your organization’s new fundraising floor plan.  There’s nothing like the aftermath of a tornado to motivate sharper focus on how best to start over with a new or reconstructed  house.

To spur you on this  new book will open your mind to a parade of possibilities.

Fundraising 401: Masterclasses in Nonprofit Fundraising That Would Make Peter Drucker Proud.

The author is Laurence Pagnoni, a veteran fundraiser, nonprofit CEO and, as the title indicates, a mentee of Peter Drucker, the renowned management consultant.

So, what does Drucker have to do with fundraising?  As it turns out, plenty.  Laurence has skillfully larded this book with pithy Drucker wisdom (“a good mission statement should be pithy and brief enough to fit on a t-shirt”) and, most importantly Drucker’s ability to ask the right questions

Among Drucker’s dicta particularly apt for today: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”  And through the sharing of his 35 years’ experience, including a stint with AIDS organizations in the midst of that pandemic, Laurence urges –and guides–readers to predict their own future by examining 23 ideas he considers essential.

Each chapter is devoted to one of the author’s 23 essential ideas.   From Chapter 1’s What is Organizational Growth (“organization growth is moving from one set of problems to a better set.”) to Chapter 23’s, In Fundraising Nothing Goes to Waste ( “You must take it upon yourself to…turn a mismatch condition into a well-matched one.”…

…and with insights on lousy and great boards and lousy and great CEOs –and how to deal with the ‘lousy’ and build toward the ‘great’ and lots of great examples (donor motivation…importance of volunteers…why ROI is so much more than a math exercise…why giving at all levels is ‘major’)  in the 21 chapters in between.

I believe you’ll come away with scores of great insights and suggestions.

This is not a ‘how to’ book, it’s a ‘why” book.  “Why” books are especially valuable at a time like this because they challenge our status quo assumptions and raise questions we all should be continually asking– but usually don’t.

Mercifully, with stories and case studies based on his 35 years’ experience Laurence has spared us the pie-in-the-sky theories and instead plants questions and suggestions we can grow in our own minds.

As Simone Joyaux emphasizes it in the Foreword, “This is a book that can help professionals explore differently and better interpret things, apply how-tos and anticipate the next how-tos A book that challenges assumptions and explores cage rattling questions.”

So, use some of your your shut-in time rattling your own cage.  Dig into Fundraising 401: Masterclasses in Nonprofit Fundraising That Would Make Peter Drucker Proud

Roger