From Each According to Their Ability, to Each According to Their Needs

Are empathy and time a fundraiser's major means of production?

I wouldn’t normally advise bringing this somewhat misattributed Karl Marx quote into a discussion about fundraising. First, it may not even originally have been Marx’ words and has appeared in quite a few different places. Second, it can be so easily twisted to mean many different things. Third, yeah, many people just don’t respond happily when you mention his name. But I bring it up because recently I had a conversation about how we decide to spend our time as fundraisers, and it provides a remarkable opportunity to put how we allocate our time into context.

“I have a donor who loves connecting with me, but they’ve already made their gift this year. Should I move on to someone else?”

This is an excellent question: time is one of our most precious resources, and a key factor in our productivity. That’s what makes this reference to Marx surprisingly apt. We only have so many hours in a week, and how we allocate them determines our results. That’s why this question isn’t just about that one donor: it’s a fundamental time management dilemma. As always, the answer to the question is, infuriatingly, it depends.

A Time Management Dilemma
As a rule of thumb, your role as a fundraiser demands that you spend your time where it moves the needle for the organization. Say you’re a fundraiser who has 40 hours a week to meet their annual fundraising goal. Even though you can argue that a variety of tasks (donor research, filing contact reports, talking to program officers, thank-you notes, internal meetings, etc.) all contribute value, your primary focus is typically on securing gifts that enable your nonprofit to fulfill its mission.

Your challenge is deciding how to balance time with donors, time behind your desk, and everything else in between. Spend too much time at your desk, and you may not get around to asking anyone for a gift. Spend too much time in the field, and you could create administrative headaches for yourself and your organization. So, you need to allocate your time wisely and find the right balance between individual donor outreach and the work that supports it.

Of the decisions where to allocate your time, most important is how you manage your time within your portfolio; being sensitive to what your donors need and responding appropriately. Below are three common dilemmas around being productive in fundraising that revolve around how you spend your time. They illustrate why understanding your donors’ needs is a critical aspect of deciding how you allocate your time, and is a key driver of meeting your short and long-term goals.

Dilemma 1: The Donor Who Has Already Given
Scenario: A donor has already made a gift this year but still wants to meet or talk regularly. Is it better to move on and focus on someone else who hasn’t given yet?

It’s tempting to shift your attention elsewhere. After all, you have limited hours, and the more donors you meet, the more gifts you might close. But consider that for many—if not most—donors, what happens after they make a gift can be the deciding factor for whether they’ll give again next year (and at what level).

Like I wrote last time, every gift is a test gift. If the motivations for giving that Pamala Wiepking and René Bekkers discuss hold true, donors may have expectation once they’ve given: confirmation of impact, recognition, perhaps a simple tax receipt, and so on. Stewardship, what meeting these needs is typically called, isn’t just about “doing the right thing." It’s also about keeping the donor for the long-term. Nothing moves a donor away from your organization faster than a simple expectation going unmet.

So ironically, while moving onto another person to meet this year’s goal might feel/sound efficient, it could come at the expense of another donor’s future support. Discerning how much engagement each donor prefers after their gift is made and responding accordingly is probably the wiser course.

Dilemma 2: Prioritizing Only the Biggest Donors
Scenario: You have a variety of donors in your portfolio, but some give higher amounts than others. To raise more money, should I exclusively focus on those with the larger giving amounts?

It’s seems to be a norm in the fundraising world to see the highest-level donors as needing the most touchpoints. Sometimes they genuinely do. Yet you risk neglecting others who would become significant donors if you treated them more like philanthropic partners than their giving level may suggest. For instance, a $5k gift might be a rounding error for one donor, but for another it’s a huge commitment that deserves thorough follow-up.

Some donors even prefer to be “low-maintenance.” I once had a donor tell me they liked me, loved the cause, but didn’t really want to see me between gifts (LOL!). Others want plenty of contact and affirmation, regardless of their giving level. Part of your role as a fundraiser is figuring out the right balance for each individual. The sooner you do this, the clearer it becomes which donors are satisfied with minimal touchpoints—and which need deeper engagement to continue feeling invested in your organization’s mission, etc.

Dilemma 3: Donors with Ulterior Motives
Scenario: On rare occasions, you’ll find donors who are more interested in personal gain, like business opportunities or potential roles at your organization, than truly supporting the cause.

I’ve run into would-be donors who saw our meetings as a chance to pitch their services or angle for a future job (the number of time I heard “about teaching at teh law school, how do I get in front of the dean?”). Thankfully, I haven’t personally experienced the kind of problematic scenario that calls for invoking a “Fundraiser Bill of Rights,” but these things do happen. If you realize a donor’s motives don’t align with your mission or they’re taking more time than you can afford without genuine philanthropic intent, it’s okay to walk away.

Your time is finite, so investing in relationships that don’t serve your organization’s goals or the donor’s real philanthropic interests is a lose-lose. Being judicious about who merits your energy can free up time to spend with donors who genuinely want to partner with your organization in materializing your shared mission and vision.

An Empathetic Response
Each donor’s journey is unique. Some give once and move on, others see their gifts as an ongoing commitment. Understanding what a donor really wants from their relationship with your organization requires more than a one-size-fits-all approach; it requires empathy in action.

Empathy here isn’t just about recognizing a donor’s values or deeply held beliefs; it’s about translating those insights into tangible steps before and after the gift is made. Psychiatrist Helen Riess, in her book The Empathy Effect, describes empathy as the ability to recognize, process, and respond effectively to another person’s emotions or needs. For fundraisers, that also means discerning whether a donor needs frequent check-ins, detailed impact reports, or minimal contact, and then following through.

Perhaps ironically so, the sooner you discern the right amount of connection each donor needs, the sooner you know a) what time you actually have for new connections, and more importantly b) what you need to do to allow the donors to give at the level they feel is right. If you succeed at meeting the donor’s needs, and take the time to meet those needs, chances are you are on the way to maximizing their support of your mission in the moment and into the future.

What Goal Are You Meeting, Anyway?
Focusing your time management decisions on this year’s fundraising number alone can inadvertently undermine next year’s success, and the year after that, and the year after, and so on. Ignoring a donor’s desire for closer engagement might lose you their future gifts, while over-engaging someone who prefers a hands-off approach can have the same result.

As fundraisers we should probably think less about the goal we have to hit this year, and more about creating purpose and meaning around each donor’s experience with the cause, the organization, and others who feel similarly. If we provide the right balance of time and attention to each donor, they’re more likely to be fulfilled by their giving, and we’ll likely make this year’s goal and the next, the one after that, and so on.

In other words, give to each donor according to their needs, so they give according to their ability.

Giving Donors the Time They Need
So how do you make this applicable right now? Here are a few thoughts:

• Map Your Portfolio Look at each donor in your portfolio individually and assign each each of them a treatment based on what you know of their preferences, capacity, and giving history

• Set a Cadence Plan how often you’ll communicate with donors who appreciate more engagement versus those who prefer hands-off stewardship

• Leverage Your Organizations Resources and your Colleagues Use readily available materials, events, convenings as well as engage executives, program officers, or volunteers to share in the conversation and provide meaningful touchpoints beyond your individual outreach

• Be Ready to Respond Quickly Collect “sharable” impact updates, stories, or stats and share these with the donors based on their interest and desired level of connection to provide maximum value in minimal time

Ultimately, your time is a resource that shapes both your current and future fundraising success. The sooner you figure out how to distribute it wisely by taking each donor’s individual needs into account, the stronger your relationships are likely to be and good results will follow.

Maarten