Michael J. Fox has a new book (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future) which is partially why he popped out of my radio this  morning on Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon. I say, partially, because he has been on that program before. It is always evident that Scott Simon is moved, no, awed, by the man. It is not the disability that impresses Simon, I think, but what the actor has learned from the disability and which he willingly shares with all of us.

WE MAY DENY our own mortality.  But there’s no escaping the knowledge of it. Some day we all become ill. Our bodies deteriorate. Michael Fox teaches us that our spirit need not deteriorate as well. He gives testimony to this every time he steps up to the podium; every time he walks into the broadcast studio; every time he talks to anyone he meets. His body fails him but he is not defeated. He has much to do.

Michael Fox has his own foundation that supports Parkinson’s Disease research. He said today he is obtaining help from the same financial titan types who thought him a role model back in the Family Ties sitcom days. He told Simon:

It’s ironic that now as I’m a fund raiser for a foundation, some of our biggest supporters are people on Wall Street and in the financial industry — hedge fund managers and stuff — that grew up idolizing Alex Keaton. So it’s come around in this weird karmic way that these people who I was satirizing ended up being my biggest benefactors.

I don’t doubt he’s very good at asking for money.

WHAT MAKES HIM GOOD? Is it his courage, his cheerful disposition? Those things do help I expect. I think what also is important — that he is willing to surrender himself to the cause. His failings become his strengths. He is not afraid to ask because he has taught himself to not be afraid of being in the public eye. Which is more difficult? I think you know the answer.

The effective fund raiser is not in the least daunted by failure. She learns from it and for that opportunity maybe, briefly, embraces failure. The urgent philanthropic need lives on and we must apply ourselves again the next day and the day after that. Some will not comprehend the opportunity we represent. There are many more not yet found who will. Especially if we keep learning from our failures.

There is no perfect fund raising case and no perfect fund raiser. We can strive for perfection if we so choose by stumbling and learning; stumbling and learning. Michael J. Fox shows us how.

Why?

Three letters and a bit of punctuation within which is captured an inquiry that could easily set us scrambling for information. In our rush we may articulate a reverse justification that begins at that thing we wish to fund. Or so often we can side step the question. The donor gives us the benefit of the doubt, maybe driven by their own emotional connection to the work our non profit is doing. They may even have their own answer to the question and on the strength of that choose to make their gift commitment. But why should we, the fund raising professionals, leave that to chance?

EVEN WHEN THE QUESTION is never asked we can get ourselves into trouble. A bequest comes unexpectedly that is larger than our mid term fund raising aspirations. For one organization the amount is $20 million. For another it is $400 million. While not named here, both are real non profits. Neither can explain to themselves what they will do with their new resource and are set to scrambling for years figuring it out. In view of such an incredible gift what is the justification for continued fund raising? Neither could address that issue and their development programs stagnated for some time.

Development professionals have to know the answer. Every executive director, president, CEO should have it on the tip of his tongue.

You want to know why you should make this gift? You want to know why you should do it now? Our non profit has an answer.

Of course, you won’t be surprised to know the answer has little to do with your organization’s needs and everything to do with your mission.

The donor will have her own reasons for making a gift. But non profit leadership should be prepared. The larger the gift, the better the answer must be. It seems so simple. Why? So innocent. Why? So devastating. Why?

But there is one unrecognized hero in this story. Philanthropy.

The first naturalists and the first great study of wildlife in the parks would not have happened without philanthropy. Grand Teton National Park and the “parkway” connecting it to Yellowstone would not exist in their present forms without it. This program, of course, would not find an audience through PBS without it. Great people. Great wealth. A powerful sense of responsibility. Recognizing the Big Idea. Acting on behalf of the people and of future generations like ours.

From Ken Burns film on the National Parks

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So often development work is reduced to this notion of ego. What the donor wants. The recognition the donor wants. The entertainment the donor wants. And probably this is not entirely wrong. But these are not things upon which one can build an entire major gift development effort. So what is it that motivates the big gift? And some not so big gifts.

Like so many stories in fund raising lore, the following may be apocryphal. But I don’t care; it’s illustrative. And who knows, maybe true:

A successful business person in Texas makes a $100 million-gift to a major medical center. The president of his alma mater is stunned by this remarkable gesture and comes to him with this question: Why not us? A thin smile crosses the gentleman’s face. He pauses a moment. Looks straight into the eyes of his questioner and says: You never presented me with a $100 million idea.

Now here is something that definitely is not apocryphal.  This week’s episode of This American Life on public radio. Here is a big idea that has the likely potential of changing the prospects of an entire neighborhood of New York City. The prospects not of this generation but the one coming up. Click here or on the image above. Montana take note.

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