Teachers Make Great Fundraisers

Heading back to school with Fundraising For Breakfast

It’s officially back to school season at my house when my children start exhibiting certain behaviors. By turns, Child #1 and Child #2 will call it the “lavatory” instead of the bathroom and Child #1 will raise his hand at the dinner table when he has something to say. Also, this text chain (PS: Child #2 is B for “Best Friend” and Child #1 is H for “Home Phone.” I have no idea how they wound up in my phone like this):

Have you ever called a teacher mom or dad? Share your childhood trauma in the chat!

I spent Labor Day weekend fighting off the weird muscle memory that kicks in for me this time of year. I taught in higher education for about 20 years before becoming a fundraiser so I’m wired to think in terms of beginnings and ends of semesters. It’s easy to shake off, but I don’t see that bi-annual impulse going away any time soon.

I’m often asked if I miss teaching. To which I reply: Absolutely not!

And the reason I don’t miss the classroom is that fundraising and teaching are, to my mind, one and the same.

Take your seats, waffle-eaters. Class is in session for the next four minutes.

The skills fundraisers use every day are the same ones teachers employ. Asking questions, listening, discussing, and building relationships are the bread-and-butter of both professions. I used to puzzle over the marriage plot in a Jane Austen novel or ask why Frankenstein feels like such a fever-dream of a novel. Now I discuss issues like food insecurity, childcare, and education with donors, volunteers, and colleagues. And then we try to figure out what we can do about it.

The element that really connects teaching and fundraising for me is the relationship-building. Nothing is done in isolation in either profession. Whether in front of a class of students or a roomful of donors, you’re working together, learning together, talking together, and (sometimes) arguing together. That’s what made my move into fundraising feel natural. I simply exchanged one classroom for another; one set of relationships for another. And when done the right way, both evolve over time:

• I once taught a Gothic Literature class and hired a student to haunt the class. He wolfed down a messy Big Mac in front of the class to make a point about how you’re supposed to read the Gothic novel. The ghost just invited me to his wedding this December.

• I’ve been working on a big anniversary campaign over the past 3 years. We’ve almost hit our goals and that’s because of colleagues, volunteers, and donors working long hours together. And we’re all still talking to each other.

• I enjoyed the most wonderful lunch over the weekend in Havre de Grace with two former students. One a talented novelist and the other the brilliance behind this post. (Plus, we got carded. Which was absurd)

• Go back and read this post and this post from earlier in the summer—they’re both about the people and tight relationships behind the work fundraisers do.

• I once made one of my favorite students read every page of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions. It’s a 600-page doorstop of a painfully boring autobiography. Below is a text exchange from over the weekend. Even when I had dumb reasons for making her do things, she still responds to my texts all these years later:

  

  Rousseau addressed his fellow Frenchmen as “Citizen.” So, naturally, that’s what me and my student called each other for, like, a week until we both were over it.

Teaching and fundraising are about relationships. Ones that start in one place and grow over time into another. That’s why they’re both fun and why teachers make great fundraisers.

Newsflash!: Many of the fundraisers I’m surrounded by at work are actually former teachers. One taught high school English (and she’s assigning you all to read Horse by Geraldine Brooks), another taught middle school English (while also chairing her department), and another taught middle school Social Studies. And I have a handful of colleagues who taught elementary school—they can get a group of volunteers to stop chatting and pay attention faster than anybody I know.

S I D E B A R

Question: “Dan, Is Dead Poet’s Society the best teaching movie?” Answer: “No. It’s trash, actually.” The best teaching scene in a movie is the opening of Stripes. For the unwashed who’ve never seen it, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis play a couple of losers who join the Army, and it opens with Ramis teaching “Basic English.” Some of the humor might not age well 40 years later, but it’s worth a look:

This clip so perfectly encapsulates my teaching experience. Sometimes you simply don’t know what to do because you’ve never done/taught it before, but need to do something. Get them talking. Get them to relax. Teach them a song. Improvise. Laugh with them. Sing with them. Encourage them. Figure it out. Do something. These are the transferable skills so key to frontline fundraising.

Double Newsflash!: One of my former students actually works at the same nonprofit I do. Meet Sierra:

Photo used with permission. I first met Sierra when she was a sophomore in my “Sympathy and the Sublime in British Romanticism” class. Now we’re colleagues and she gets an A+.

A N O T H E R S I D E B A R

I got some good advice about my job materials when I was first applying to fundraising jobs. A friend suggested I tell a story in my job letter about a time I convinced somebody to do something. Below is the actual snippet from my 2019 job letter:

I haven’t spoken to this student in years, so I just reached out to her on LinkedIn and hope to hear back from her. I’d like to show her how she impacted my own career trajectory.

None of what I’m talking about is limited to teachers. We all bring skills from our lives that help us to be good professional or volunteer fundraisers. Sound off in the chat about what you’ve brought from a previous career into fundraising so we can all learn a little something from you!

So, no, you guys. I don’t miss higher education, and I don’t miss teaching.

I’m surrounded by former teachers and I’m working alongside my former students. Every day I build relationships with people that change and grow over time, just like I did in higher ed.

There’s nothing to miss.

Most days it feels like I never left.

PS: Yes, Child #1, it was for my Substack. Double dessert after dinner tonight if you raise your hand at the table and prove you read to the end.