The Donor Pyramid Lie – V
I promise … after today, we’ll give the donor pyramid a rest. Except that next week Roger will pull together some thoughts on the underlying issues raised this debate of the past few days on The Agitator.
For now, Ken Burnett gets the last word on The Pyramid, and discloses the true origins of its chief rival, The Trapezoid …
Hello Tom,
I hope you are well and that 2010 is going good for you and all Agitators.
You and I are both long in the tooth, and well familiar with how often the accepted wisdoms of the past can come around again, and again, and even again, repackaged and represented as something new. So I’ve been following your debate on the dreaded donor pyramid with child-like fascination.
I find it curiously reassuring to read the cut and thrust of the various exchanges and was particularly pleased to digest Kristin McCurry’s insightful comments concerning the donor trapezoid.
So I thought you might be interested in the attached, a little bit of history reproduced from page 61 of the 1992 edition of my book Relationship Fundraising. The 2002 edition (Jossey-Bass Inc) has the subject spread across pages 47-50, so the issue is dissected and illustrated in the detail it deserves.
There really is nothing new.
In case you or any of your readers think that I invented the donor trapezoid, a detailed study through the annals of SOFII (www.sofii.org) will I’m sure show that the donor trapezoid was in fact first illustrated by the Nordic mystic Og the Benevolent in 563 BC and inscribed, in chalk, upon the walls of the temple to the God-king Segmentation III in Uppsala, Sweden, in January of that year.
My prediction for the future of fundraising is that whenever and wherever fundraisers may gather to plot and plan their predations against the donor classes, that our tried and trusted old friend the donor pyramid will pop up too, in one form or another, to guide our approaches.
Plus ça change, toujours la même chose, and all that.
A jolly good thing the old pyramid is, too, in all its iterations. Who needs more sophisticated technologies? If you ask me there’s too much of this change thing about, these days.
Pip pip!
Ken
Of course, the fundamental issue we have been exploring here is how to win increasing support from every donor. With that goal in mind, Roger will attempt to draw some insights out of this week’s discussion and offer some direction (and resources) in his upcoming posts.
Tom
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