[AI-assisted as I need to get these out for folks.]
Fundraising is sales at its most demanding form. It sells conviction, not product—and shared purpose, not possession. It’s a design practice: the deliberate structuring of exchanges so that trust, authorship, and alignment happen by design rather than by chance.
When it’s done well, it feels like two people building something side by side—assembling their different resources around a shared challenge. These five rules describe what makes that possible. They’re not etiquette or tactics. They’re design principles for how collaboration becomes real.
Rule 1 · There Is No Transaction
In commercial life, two parties trade value. In fundraising, there’s no trade. No commodity changes hands. No ROI to calculate. The work is collective from the start.
You and the donor each hold different forms of leverage—money, relationships, time, skill—and fundraising is how those pieces come together in service of something bigger.
That posture takes discipline:
- Don’t perform gratitude or dependency.
- Don’t describe the exchange as a favor they’re granting.
- Don’t signal hierarchy or distance.
Treating the conversation as a trade invites evaluation; holding it as collaboration invites participation. The job is to stay peer-to-peer—to talk as colleagues working on the same problem, not as applicant and approver.
Rule 2 · Center the Work, Not the Organization
People don’t give to stabilize an organization. They give to move the work forward. When you center your organization, you ask donors to care about your internal world—your team, your strategy, your sustainability—instead of the problem itself.
Centering the work means:
- Speaking on behalf of the mission, not the entity.
- Framing the budget in terms of what it enables, not what it needs.
- Using “we” to include everyone advancing the solution, not just your staff.
Your authority comes from loyalty to the work itself. That’s what lets you disagree, hold the line, and lead without defensiveness. The moment you lapse into institutional self-reference—“our organization,” “our needs,” “our priorities”—the spell breaks and the conversation turns into a pitch. Competence should be felt through calm and clarity, not asserted through formality.
Rule 3 · Keep It Emergent
People commit more fully to what they help create.
Good fundraising lives in the space between real and unfolding—solid enough to be credible, open enough to be shaped. Too early and it feels uncertain; too polished and there’s no room for contribution.
Design your presentation so the work feels alive:
- “This is happening—and it’s still being figured out.”
- Leave visible seams and open questions.
- Invite analysis, ideas, and refinement.
Emergent framing lowers perceived risk. A donor can commit because they expect to stay close to the process—able to see challenges emerge and help solve them. They’re not asked to take the plan on faith; they’ll be inside the work as it evolves. Proximity turns uncertainty into authorship, and risk into engagement.
Emergent narratives are also more engaging. People follow along, apply their expertise, and start solving beside you. That shift—from watching to participating—creates momentum. Fixed plans are static; emergent ones move.
Rule 4 · Emotion Sells, Detail Rationalizes
Most fundraisers reverse this sequence. They lead with logic and hope emotion will follow. But giving isn’t rational—and, truthfully, no human decision ever is.
Resources move through emotion, identity, and connection, not through analysis. Your plans, budgets, and credentials don’t create desire; they help a donor justify a desire they already feel.
People give to four things:
- To you. They value your presence, conviction, and composure.
- To themselves. They want to be the kind of person who does this work.
- To each other. They draw energy from belonging to a community of people who care.
- To the work. Not the plan or the metrics, but the poetry of the work—the big, sweeping vision of what it means for the world to be better.
Those four things are the only on-ramp to a commitment. They are what create the sale.
Each exchange should then hold three modes of presence:
- Emotional: Speak to what’s unjust, urgent, or luminous.
- Intellectual: Engage their reasoning and invite their analysis.
- Creative: Build something together in real time.
The rest—the plans, the track record, the numbers—doesn’t make the sale; it keeps the sale. These details block the off-ramps. They stop the donor from second-guessing themselves, from cooling off, from deciding it was impulse rather than judgment.
Emotion and connection pull them onto the ramp. Clarity and evidence keep them there.
Rule 5 · Share Credit, Make It Theirs
The only things you own are your mistakes. Everything else belongs to the collective.
The goal of fundraising isn’t just inclusion; it’s transfer of ownership. A donor’s relationship to the work needs to become first-person. It should feel like their project—something they’re shaping and sustaining, not just observing.
When that happens:
- Commitment lasts longer.
- Risk tolerance increases.
- Reporting becomes easier.
- Pride replaces distance.
You build this by modeling genuine authorship: using a “we” that truly includes them, inviting input that changes the work, and acknowledging their influence without performance or flattery. When ownership is shared, investment becomes natural. People fight harder for what feels like theirs.
Closing Note
These rules aren’t about etiquette or persuasion. They describe how to build relationships strong enough to hold ambition, uncertainty, and consequence.
Fundraising at its best isn’t performance—it’s alignment. It’s how conviction becomes collaboration, and how shared conviction becomes power.
Geoffrey MacDougall 
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