Arthur C. Brooks on the essence of what it means to be a “donor”
“I have found that the real magic of fund-raising goes even deeper than temporary happiness or extra income. It creates meaning. Donors possess two disconnected commodities: material wealth and sincere convictions. Alone, these commodities are difficult to combine. But fund-raisers facilitate an alchemy of virtue: They empower those with financial resources to convert the dross of their money into the gold of a better society. “
This excerpt was reposted by Jim Langley on Linkedin (November, 2025).
Langley opines:
“Yet, it is so often our inability to connect those two commodities – material wealth and sincere convictions – to the betterment of society in any concrete way that drains fundraising of its vitality and turns in into empty boasts with elusive outcomes. We fail to provide meaning when we ask donors to subsidize our operations rather than showing them when, where and how their giving can optimize mission delivery.
I don’t fault fundraisers as much as I do those who send them out in pursuit of hollow purposes such as “raising more this year than last year” while losing sight of the “sincere convictions” to better our world.
Reading Brook’s essay reminds us of why we got into the fundraising business and why people become philanthropic but, some eleven years after it was written, it shows us how often we fall short of what we know fundraising can and should be.”
Contributed Line 