It never ceases to amaze me how stupid and cheap so many nonprofit CEOs, board members and, yes, even fundraisers can be.

The consequences that spring from ignorance about the importance of investing in fundraising and a zealously misplaced focus on ‘cost savings’ yield horror and frustration for staff and almost always result in calamity where the future of the organization is concerned.

I was painfully reminded of this reality in a recent post by Pam Grow  calling for November submissions to the Nonprofit Blog Carnival. 

The Nonprofit Blog Carnival is a collection of the best advice and resources that consultants, support organizations, and nonprofits themselves are offering to the nonprofit community through their blogs.

Kivi Leroux Miller, of the Nonprofit Marketing Guide, founded the Nonprofit Blog Carnival in 2006, and Joanne Fritz at About.com took over management of the carnival in 2010 and has now passed it on to Pam.

The call for submissions is published near the beginning of each month, with the final roundup Carnival of blogs appearing near the end of each month.

For November, Pam is seeking submissions from fundraisers on the subject: How are you adopting to an abundance mindset?

And this is where the issues of ‘cheap’ and ‘stupid’ come into play.

Pam rightly focuses on the “bizarre lengths to which nonprofit organizations will go, blinded in their endless pursuit of ‘free’. ‘Free’ web hosting, ‘free’ training programs, ‘free’ email service providers, ‘free’ databases.”

“They all come with a hidden price tag — continued inefficiency” warns Pam and she notes:  “I’ve always believed that the nonprofit cult of free speaks to something much deeper …

• “if you’re not committed to funding your mission, how can you possibly be committed to your mission?

• “If you can’t be compelled to spend money to make money, how committed are you?”

Then Pam poses a challenge: decide which sacrifices resulting from insufficient funding add up to failure and frustration. Which ones really matter to your organization’s future? Then “go forth and fight for them.”

She calls the inability and fear of spending money on fundraising that inflicts so many organizations the “mentality of lack”. As in lack of resources to get the job done, lack of resources to keep the staff you need, lack of money to acquire the technology that will make the organization efficient and successful.

So, for November’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival Pam wants to know what actions folks will take to overcome the “mentality of lack” with an “abundance mindset”. Actions, for example, like making daily thank you calls a habit. Simple actions and changes in mindset that will result in more abundance of income for your organization, more abundance of good experiences for your donors.

It’s an important challenge and one that gives us all a chance to set aside the frustrations of cheapskate CEOs and boards and take it upon ourselves to make positive choices and take simple actions that will advance our organization.

You can find out how to submit suggestions to November’s Blog Carnival here.

What are your suggestions for overcoming the “mentality of lack”?

Roger