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YOU are beginning!  However you crossed the 2022 finish line, you are beginning this New Year! Bravo! It’s scary and exciting all at once!

I’m celebrating the New Year in Faro, Portugal where Ken and I are exploring with our son, RJ, and his gal, Bailey.  It’s been a tremendous adventure filled with delightful surprises and opportunities to flex your positive mindset muscle that only international travel can bring!

Thank you for investing your talent and passion into inspiring generosity – for non-profit missions…and LIFE! It’s an honorable and noble calling. Here we are ready to launch again!  There are those who go through laborious lists of tasks to prepare for the New Year.  I think it comes down to 3 pretty simple resolutions – and none make you go to the gym, clean your piles or pledge massive changes. 

THREE Resolutions You Need for 2023!

1. Resolve to be bigger than your problems.

It’s not the size of the problem; it’s the size of you! Think about how you struggled with zoom early 2020 – now it’s a cinch. Zoom hasn’t changed really. Perhaps there are more features – but what HAS changed is you – your growth in comfort with the tool. Being in Portugal now is a new language, new money, new streets – all doable with some time and thought.

“Every master was once a disaster.” (Eker). Everything new, or at least new to you, is scary at first. Fear shuts us down. Try instead to be curious. “I wonder how or what I could do to take a next step.” Know yourself. How do you feel most comfortable confronting something new – a person by your side showing you, an on-line tutorial, a class? Jay Wilkinson, Founder of Firespring, and tech wiz, collects new tools he sees and sets aside a Saturday morning each month to explore them. Good advice. As we navigated Portugal, we each had our ways of figuring it out. 

2. Resolve to try again tomorrow.

There are lots of reasons thing don’t go as planned. Some issues seem to never get resolved and get frustrating. Some people we struggle don’t seem to change. You may feel worn out. It may look bleak. It may feel like it will never change.  Have a nice dinner, watch a Disney movie, put it all aside. Tomorrow really IS another day. Life is overflowing with opportunities to begin again.

As Annie sings in the show, “Annie” “Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love you, tomorrow! You’re only a day away!” 

And, the Japanese Proverb goes, “Fall down seven. Stand up eight.”  It doesn’t matter how many times you fall down, fail, or get discouraged – as long as you stand up again.  We learned this navigating narrow one-way streets when we were way too tired.  Tomorrow IS another day.

3. Resolve that the world is basically good and you are here to thrive!   

You choose how you walk through life. Sure, it’s not something you can constantly hold on to, but you DO choose to believe the world – the universe – God – is basically good. I choose to believe that I was placed here to THRIVE – be the best version of myself I can muster. Indeed there are manipulative people out there.  Yet believing that you are destined to be successful and happy and LOOKING for signs towards what you define as success and happiness draws you to it – it must.

I say often in my talks that I believe there are people in Madison, Wisconsin who get out of bed in the morning and ask, “How can I be offended today?” And guess what? They find something!

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at….wait for it…CHANGE!

If you are looking for 2023 to be the best yet – it will be.  I promise!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Invest in JOY®

Just days away from 2023 isn’t it great to look back and remember……

—the donors you helped make the gift that was JUST RIGHT for THEM!

—those whose lives are changed because you and your organization SHOW UP every day!

— the board members who gave and led by example for others to follow suit.

— the skills and knowledge you’ve gained to be even better at this calling of fundraising.

—the camaraderie with your co-workers, volunteers, and team.

—the last minute gifts – miracles and surprises!

— the fun! 

—the way you feel right now – maybe a bit tired but SO Fulfilled!

Now is the time to …..

Joyfully adapt and Bravely Believe!

It WILL be a(nother) HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Invest in JOY®

Busy! Busy! Busy!  Happy December!

Traversing that fine line between overjoyed and overwhelmed – sometimes only seconds apart!  I LOVE IT! Showed up for a great session with AFP New Jersey and then back to get the tree up (or upside down actually). HAHAHAHA!

Simply Showing Up Is Enough

5 Key ways to simply show up for Giving (and Living) Success

With millions given the last month – and last day – of December now is the time to embrace that simply showing up is enough.  Be thrilled with how giving empowers your mission. Be joyful as you celebrate this magical time. Be authentic in caring that your givers experience giving the gift that is meaningful for them.

Connect with as many of your key givers as possible now – those who have given this year, and those who usually do, but you haven’t heard from yet this year. Start with your largest givers – but have a long, long list. You’ll get some surprises!

“You are important to us and I want to wish you happy holidays! If there is anything I can do to help you with your year-end giving, I’m happy to help.”

1. Show up at the door.  MAKE TIME!

Connect – in person. Olivia takes out poinsettias. Nancy bakes bread. Holly has pictures from camp. Call and stop in. Don’t take your coat off. Be sure to get to the kids stuff and the funerals, too. In person.

 2. Show up on the phone. True story from one of my coaching folks.

“Called David to ask if they were planning on making their gift ($25,000) before year end and if so, was there was anything I could do to help make that happen. He thought they had done it!  He said, “Yes, we will get on that right away.”  Within about 10 minutes I got a text message saying the money had been requested from their Vanguard account and would be showing up shortly.”

Enough said.  And texting is great, too!

3. Show up in the email. 

Short. Simply. Simple gets read, busy does not. Get all the emails cued up to go out – now, December 28th and 31^st.  HELP them remember they can simply click and do YOUR MISSION some good.

4. Show up in their mailbox.

May your days be merry and bright! Send a card. Your year-end letter can be sent again with a note attached – “Wanted to be sure you saw this – Thank you and Happy Holidays!”

5. Show up for yourself.

When you are just too pooped – and you really don’t enjoy the thing you have on the list to attend – email to say your plans have changed and you can’t join in. Rest.

IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!  (Can you hear me singing?)

Invest in JOY®

Setting goals to serve Your Success…and YOU! 

This past week over 50 – YES 50 – folks joined me for the AFP DEEP DIVE on Major Gifts. Typically I limit the group to 30-35 but with MAJOR GIFTS being SO CRITICAL NOW, I let it go. Took two zoom screenshots and I’m not certain I captured everyone! Singing “People Love to Give Me Money” was chaos and I know I didn’t personally speak with everyone. The session was clearly a success – EVEN THOUGH I FAILED TO MEET SEVERAL OF MY GOALS.

Like many of you, I was hard-wired I swear since kindergarten to connect setting goals, and achieving them, with being productive and successful.  Failure to do so was, well, failure. I’ve spent a lot of my overall VERY SUCCESSFUL LIFE feeling like I often failed to do what I said I would do when I said I would do it by – personally and professionally. Can you relate?  You get a bit jaded on this whole goal thing. It becomes more of a game to fill in the required “annual plan” with your best guess of what you can actually do – or you can always set the bar really, really low.

Over time I’ve adopted a different view on goals and planning… thanks to coaching and life.

For our fundraising work we often use specific dollar, attendee numbers and visit metrics for our goals. In a campaign, we create a Chart of Gifts and then work to fill it in with donor names we think will invest at the various level. Plotting this out gives us a sense of security and confidence. We have a plan.

However, it seems when we have very specific deliverables we focus more on what we MISS than what we make.

“We were hoping for 200 attendees and ended up at about 180 – a bit short.”

“We factored Paul in for $100,000 and ended up he gave $50,000.”  (What about the fact that his largest gift prior to this was $5000?)

“I was planning to make calls for visits and ended up responding to an email from a potential donor about a $50k gift. Didn’t get those appointments set up.”

You have your own examples, I’m sure.

If 180 people had a great experience the goal of 200 is fine, but does not mean we somehow failed or were short.

If we had $100,000 gift goal down that resulted in $50,000 did we “leave money on the table?” or do something wrong in the asking process?  Or was $50,000 the amount that was right?  I had lunch with a donor of one of my clients this week. She said, “I never wrote a check (to make a gift) I didn’t enjoy!” THAT is reaching a goal.

Our days are filled with interruptions – so why do we plan them out as if we can manage the time as we planned? 

And, we can actually get frustrated with our family, boss, donors, and ourselves because they are not falling in line with what we planned!

My goal is for you to enjoy, and be happy about, your development work and your life. 

1. Your joy is governed by how you think about the results you experience.  We choose to see something as a failure or a success. See the original goal as your ‘best guess’ for the result and be open to a different result as you move forward toward the goal.
2. Have long-vision goals. Make very specific steps you can reasonably take in a day or week to move toward that goal. 
3. Decide that extending or modifying a goal is part of the process – not a sign you failed.
4. Celebrate what WAS ACCOMPLISHED – and view this as a step in a continuing journey toward that longer vision.
5. Every goal can be reworked.  The Campaign can have a Phase II to get to the needed result over a longer timeline. More gifts can be sought to make up for those that came in lower than the gift chart level assigned. You can try again to get along better with your kids.
6. Our most important goals are on-going and hard to measure:

• To have close and loving relationships.
• To enjoy donors who are happy about their giving.
• To feel pretty healthy most days.
• To have work that makes you feel valued and fulfilled.

What is your life vision?  Mine is to help others create their best life.

That vision guides how I interact with my spouse, my kids, my clients, donors and all the fundraisers, board members and leaders every day and how I judge myself and my progress. At the core is my belief that the world is good and I am destined for joy and success.

Vince in my APF Deep Dive course said, “When I work with donors I feel like I am helping them with THEIR “American dream.”  That’s a vision!

May you, too, be lifted up and energized by your life vision. A life spent working towards your vision is a success. 

Invest in JOY®