The Fundraising Fail

Are you afraid of having a party that no one comes to? Of giving a talk to an empty room?

Doing our best, putting it all out there, asking a big question … and hearing crickets: it’s a core fear that can paralyze us.

If you’re a fundraiser, it might look like: “What if I ask everyone, and I still can’t raise the money I need?”

And sometimes, that will be true, especially when you are getting started with anything new.

What happens if you face that paralyzing fear?

In my experience, it makes things better, not worse. Eventually.

When I first got divorced, I had a core fear about being alone, a fear that felt most acute around the holidays. I couldn’t – didn’t want to – imagine living through a holiday when my kids weren’t around, when other people were with their own families, where my own lonely and FOMO would cement me down to a version of rock bottom.

And, as happens, the Universe said, “Here, watch this!”

And on my first fully divorced Christmas three years ago, I got Covid. There I was: just me and the couch.

Without ribbon, without wrapping. Without trimmings and without trappings.

Was I miserable? In fact, I was.

But also, did I survive? In fact, I did.

And later, from the safety of the morning of December 26, I chuckled and offered my grudging respect to the wisdom of the Universe.

Point taken.

I had in fact survived something that had inspired unmeasurable dread in me.

And do you know what? When the next holiday came around, that dread ebbed. Substantially.

So maybe just notice: how do your fears and dread paralyze you?

How you might start to think (then then to believe): It’s easier not to ask than to get a no.

Or, It feels safer somehow to go day after day without sending the email or making the call or planning the event. Because we’ve been led to believe that the “no” is somehow worse than not knowing. But that’s what turns to dread in our bellies.

And I hope the Universe doesn’t ask you to stand alone at your next holiday or fundraising gala, doesn’t queue up you talking to an empty Zoom room or row of chairs at your workshop.

But what if that’s what happens? If that sitting with the wobbles in your voice and singing, even if for now it’s to an empty row of chairs, is actually the point?

If making the ask and collecting the no is actually part of the drill?

The Universe needs you to see for yourself: you can tolerate it. You can do it.

It’s not always fun. But it’s a lesson of life, one that I’m still learning.