Like the early crocus poking its head through the wintry ground as Spring arrives in North America there are emerging signs of hope for our sector.

I witnessed these signs first-hand on April 1^stat AFPICon in San Antonio and I want to share them with you.

Sign of Hope #1: At midnight on the 1^stI  hit ‘send’ for that day’s post  alerting Agitator readers to the just-released Rogare report on the critical state of fundraising in the U.S.  It contained, among many valuable insights, the warning that we face a worsening ‘talent crisis’ if our sector fails to invest in the career development of younger fundraisers. The report is also filled with prescriptive recommendations that all of us -young, old or in-between—will benefit from if put into practice.

Among the most important of those recommendations is that we devote serious time and attention to evidence-based fundraising—meaning the collection and distribution of “best practices” properly vetted and easily accessible by all. Currently, the sector spends far too much time and wastes far too many resources either re-inventing the wheel where proven solutions exist or relying on myths and aphorisms that sound good but have no empirical basis.

Sign of Hope #2. Later on April 1^st I joined in a presentation with long-time friend Chuck Longfield with whom I serve as a member of the Advisory Panel of  Blackbaud Institute for Philanthropic Impact. The quite-appropriate topic for the session given the Rogares report was Do This, Not That: Proven Best Practices for Today’s Fundraiser.

(Because Chuck is marking his 40^thprofessional year and I’m a bit north of my 50^th, we wanted to name the session We Ain’t Dead Yet,but more somber heads prevailed.)

I’ll be coming back to the content of that best practices session in a future post, but for today I simply wanted to note that the crowd was large, the questions good, and there were lots of new, young fundraisers among the participants.  And given the quality of the questions by both the beginners and the seasoned veterans there is a real desire to explore and share evidence-based best practices.

Sign of Hope #3.  In mid-afternoon I joined a panel in the AFP’s Rebels, Renegades and Pioneers Track titled From Making Waves to Creating a Tsunami of Change . This marvelously spirited session clearly populated by fundraisers dissatisfied with the status quo and chomping at the bit for change –including reform of the AFP itself—is also deserving of a separate post.  For now, I’ll simply summarize by enthusiastically noting there’s a deep and wide vein of demand for change and the willingness to raise hell to break the status quo.  This is the stuff of hope!

Sign of Hope #4:  A new school for standards.  As is so often the case we learn more at these conferences by listening for the latest developments while informally catching up with friends and colleagues. It was in one of those unscheduled sidebar chats that I learned of a new school for beginning fundraisers.

Named Fundraising Standard Its founders?  Two of the sector’s most committed veterans when it comes to education and training: Jay Love, co-founder and Chief Relationship Officer at Bloomerang and Adrian Sargeant, head of The Philanthropy Centre in the U.K. and U.S.

Aptly named Fundraising Standard, this new nonprofit aims at getting new, beginning fundraisers off to the right start with 8 weeks of on-line training consisting of 40 hours of course work based upon proven best practices. The goal:  to position each graduate with all of the basic knowledge required to undertake and successfully perform professional fundraising!

You can check out the outline of Fundraising Standard’s 8-week curriculum here.

I asked Jay why, after 30 years of building and launching donor management systems (eTapestry and Bloomerang) and volunteering hours and hours on boards and advancing efforts like the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, he and Bloomerang were contributing substantial time and money to this effort.

His answer should inspire us all: “Over the last 30 years, I have witnessed thousands of small and medium size NPO’s struggle with growing or even sustaining support for absolutely wonderful missions due to lack of any true professional fundraising training.   Even worse,  the tidbits of knowledge they pick up are often no more than wives tales– or  really bad advice from sincere but utterly clueless board members.  The growing body of knowledge coming from proven scientific research in philanthropy is often ignored or not available. So, this is my opportunity to ‘give back’ to a sector I love.”

Couple Jay’s organizing skill and commitment along with Adrian’s years of fundraising research and training experience in the U.S., U.K. and around the world and the result is a winning –and much needed—recipe for training success.

Apparently, I’m not alone in my assessment.  Not only have the first two classes of the 8-week course at Fundraising Standard been fully subscribed and are already underway, a number of Community Foundations in the U.S. and Canada are fully or partially underwriting the already reasonably $499 cost for the 40 hours of training for nonprofits in their area.

And, putting its money where Jay’s heart is Bloomerang has purchased of hundreds of classroom seats that will be offered free to each new Bloomerang customer in 2019.

A Hopeful Week, A Hopeful Future

I’m grateful for the signs of change I saw in just one day in San Antonio.  Could we be entering a Fundraising Spring? I sure hope so.

Roger