Fundraising as Moment of Freedom
Every ask and every gift is a confrontation with the idea of freedom itself. Fundraising reveals the weight of what it means for humans to have a choice. The fundraiser is the one who sets the context choice and then invites the donor into their absolute freedom. They can say yes, they can say no. They can delay. They can say nothing at all.
This is a deceptively radical moment. The moment of the gift is a moment of acceptance. In that moment, you allow some emptiness in your cup to be filled with a responsibility for the greater world.
We're familiar with the weight of this responsibility (for example, in the many, many, many variations of the trolley problem). But rarely is it condensed into a moment. At the moment of the ask, the full weight of our human responsibility is brought to fruition, or at least, the deepest version of it we can grok.
We don’t get to hide from the responsibility. We can't tamper with ideas about society, emotion, tradition, and science. We don’t get to say, “Oh, I had no choice, I was just…” No. The fundraiser thrusts the donor into a situation where she must choose.
No one is born a donor. No one is born a fundraiser. We’re thrown into these lives and identities. The moment of fundraising is an invitation to make our own meaning out of this thrown-ness. It’s not a smooth, easy thing happening. It’s clay, not plastic. It's direct engagement. It is rough around the edges. Dangerous, even.
Understandably, many of us try to dismiss or dismantle this freedom. Donors say: “Society expects me to give. My parents expect me to give. I can’t say no.” And as fundraisers, we do the same thing: “I’m just following my script. The organization needs this. I’m just running through.”
When we shy away from the moment of freedom, it's bad faith. These bad faiths show up as convenient shields, hiding freedom from us, underneath their convenient cover of our roles and excuses. It's like our brains try to protect us from the overwhelming anxiety of the choice. But underneath it is that freedom. And fundraisers can help us see it if we want to.