There’s a popular meme on Twitter, challenging people to write a six word story. Recently, we challenged a group of development officers to write their own six word stories about the state of fundraising in their organizations.
The answers caused rueful chuckles and nods of familiarity. Do you recognize your resource development efforts in any of these six word stories?
Pushing huge boulders up a hill.
Elbowing our way to strategic relevance.
Eager, willing, capable, but under-resourced.
Scattered and inconsistent, but moving toward intentional.
Not tactically ready to raise money.
We’ve always done it this way.
The truth is, on any given day, most of us can relate to one of these stories. There’s a healthy tension that exists in any organization, between what we know how to do today, and the skills we’ll need tomorrow. As teams and goals change, so do our stories.
Since none of us will ever work in a perfect world, with perfect people, our challenge is to write the best story we can. Each day, we’ve got to find a hopeful theme, and, more importantly, to make sure we’re demonstrating that positive story to our staff and volunteer teams.
Looking for inspiration? Try these:
Generosity’s only limit is vision.
What challenges us make us stronger.
Be willing to be wrong.
How about you? How would describe your organization’s fundraising efforts in a six word story?