Change is hard.

But even harder is not regressing back to the old ways after change has been made.

In college, I studied history. And, if you just look at the history of the U.S., whenever there is a big shift or change (take the civil rights movement, for example), there is reactive regression. Then, more movement forward. A period of regression then follows again.

It’s frustrating for those of us that want to see change when you’re in the middle of it all. But, if you look back to where something started, you realize a bunch of progress has taken place over time.

This gives me hope about the future of major gift fundraising.

I was having a discussion recently with a colleague who was lamenting that a very high-profile client we worked with for several years is regressing back to “their old ways” of major gifts.

This colleague of mine had worked with the client for four years and saw a major shift in how they viewed their donors. They followed The Veritus Way, they created authentic relationships with donors, and the money followed. The client more than tripled their revenue from major donors in the time we worked with them.

They decided after four years that they “got it” and felt they had embraced The Veritus Way and they were ready to do it on their own. We love that. We celebrated them and they were now on their own.

Now, two years later, we found out they have undone much of the work we had helped them do to achieve those results. Why? Because in our sector, we have been doing major gifts wrong for so long it’s really hard for those leaders and managers that grew up in the “it’s all about the money” mentality and practice, to let go of it.

But notice I said they’ve undone “much of the work.” They didn’t undo all of it. And, over time, we hope this non-profit will learn from their mistakes and go back to creating an environment where building relationships with major donors is the best way to build a major gift program.

If you are a change agent at your organization trying to help your non-profit see that relationship fundraising should be the ethos of your organization over transactional fundraising, you will run into disappointment and frustration. The forces against change are strong, and the forces to move backward after you have made changes are even stronger.

Do not despair. In the long run, the changes you have implemented that uplift fundraisers and the donors they have relationships with will win out over those forces that take advantage of non-profit labor and think of their donors simply as a means to an end.

Our sector is changing. But it’s a slog. At Veritus, we are here for the long-term, helping move this sector forward. That means believing that not only is your mission about “the thing” you do to change the world, but it also includes the staff and the donors who are critical in making that mission happen.

There will be setbacks. It will sometimes feel like we are going backwards. But when we look back, we will see the change.

Keep moving forward.

Jeff