I travel a lot, both for work and for fun. When I travel for fun, I like to have a map or two, some idea of where I am going to stay, and what I would like to see along the way and at my destination. When I return to favorite places, I am often struck by how they have changed, but equally so how they have not. In this section, we are going to travel down a fundraising highway. We will look at the new and exciting ideas and inventions that make our fundraising lives much easier. We will touch briefly on strategies and ideas that are hot now, but will become the Beanie Babies of fundraising (a commercial flare so over that many younger readers may not even recognize the reference), and mention some old tropes that have finally gone to rest in the great idea landfill in the sky. What will be most interesting, and what we will spend the most time on, are the principles of fundraising that remain true through recessions and boom times, through generational and other demographic changes, through technological revolutions, and through all kinds of political changes.

I start with a look at the nonprofit sector as a whole—how it has grown and changed, how much more we know about how to raise money, but also how much more money it takes to be successful. This overview will help you understand how some of the problems you have are true throughout the nonprofit sector. Then I discuss the importance of creating a fundraising philosophy: What is your belief about how the work of your organization should be paid for? You may have to make some compromises from the ideal, but if you haven’t answered the question to begin with, you will not know when you are compromising and when you are simply sending your organization down a rabbit hole of problems. Next I discuss several key principles that apply to all fundraising. To make it all work leads us to the final chapter in this section, about how organizations need to structure their fundraising strategies and who must be available to help raise money. (HINT: That is the chapter on the Board of Directors.)