Philanthropy shows people what their relationship to an organization is.
Organizations make choices about how they approach fundraising. They decide what to celebrate, what to measure, whose participation to recognize, how to talk about giving, and what they want donors to feel when they engage.
Those choices lead to different outcomes.
You can build a culture where every contribution is valued, and people understand that participation matters, regardless of the size of the gift. You can invite people into a shared sense of ownership and make giving feel like one of the ways they participate in something they care about.
Or you can put up a thermometer, publish participation percentages, and use comparison or social pressure to push people toward a goal.
Both approaches may raise money. But they don’t build the same thing.
Fundraising doesn’t happen outside an organization’s culture. It helps create that culture. Every appeal, campaign, event, thank-you, recognition strategy, and conversation about giving communicates something about what the organization values and what it means to belong.
That distinction matters to me because I’ve never believed philanthropy is just about generating revenue. Done well, philanthropy can be one of the most powerful community-building tools an organization has.
Giving can create connection. It can deepen someone’s relationship with a mission. It can give people a tangible way to say, “I believe in this, and I want to be part of it.”
And giving feels good. There’s actually research behind that. Studies of charitable giving have found that giving activates the brain’s reward center. If giving can be a source of connection, meaning, and even joy, our fundraising practices shouldn’t strip those things away.
That’s something I think we sometimes lose sight of when fundraising becomes overly focused on goals, percentages, tactics, and transactions. Philanthropy gives people an opportunity to act on something they value. Our job isn’t to manufacture guilt or pressure people into giving. It’s to create meaningful opportunities for people to participate.
That doesn’t mean pretending every gift has the same financial impact. A $50 gift and a $50,000 gift obviously provide very different resources to an organization. Major donors deserve thoughtful stewardship. Campaign goals matter. Revenue matters. None of this works if we aren’t actually raising money.
But financial value and human value are not the same thing.
Someone giving $25 may be making a deeply meaningful commitment. Someone making their first gift may be beginning a relationship with an organization that lasts for years. Someone participating in an annual fund may come away feeling more connected because they were invited to be part of something, not because they were told they were falling short.
So the question I think we should be asking is, “What are we trying to build?”
If the answer is simply a dollar amount, that will lead to one set of choices.
If the answer includes trust, belonging, engagement, shared ownership, long-term relationships, and the resources necessary to advance the mission, it leads to another.
Some of the philanthropy work I’m proudest of has happened when giving became part of how people understood their relationship to the organization. I’ve seen first-time donors become more engaged. I’ve led campaigns that created energy around something a community wanted to accomplish together. And I’ve seen what happens when people feel that their participation is genuinely valued rather than measured against someone else’s.
Community-building and effective fundraising aren’t opposing goals. When people understand what they’re part of, believe their participation matters, trust the organization, and feel genuinely connected to what their generosity makes possible, philanthropy becomes something much bigger than a transaction. It becomes one of the ways a community builds itself.
