LITMIR.BIZ

PREFACE

      As we began work on this edition in spring 2020, nonprofits and fundraisers around the world faced challenges and uncertainties like never before. The novel coronavirus was in its first months and economies were staggering with the related pressures. In the United States, a social justice movement was spotlighting historical and structural issues related to racial equity. Similar social movements were occurring around the globe. Nonprofits were reflecting deeply on their commitments to equity and inclusion. Some faced exponential rises in needs for services, and others experienced declining opportunities to deliver their missions and garner needed income.

      Because of COVID‐19, we could not gather in person for editorial meetings at the Indiana University (IU) Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI. Rather, we met online as our university leaders explored the best ways to keep our community healthy and safe and maintain financial stability. Indiana University fundraisers paused to make sense of campus and community needs and expectations, rather than completing previously planned efforts. Like their peers at other colleges and universities, they called and wrote donors to check on their well‐being and to provide updates. They resumed fundraising, prioritizing emergency support for students, whose need for special assistance was quickly evident.

Just as university fundraisers were navigating unknown territory, fundraisers across the wide and diverse nonprofit sector found themselves scrambling to keep up with pressing demands for more resources. Their responsibility for funding organizational missions weighed heavily and they wondered how to build relationships without seeing donors in person. Like clients, donors, and everyone else, fundraisers struggled with their own personal difficulties and uncertainties.

      As it turned out, we all soon witnessed the generosity of people helping their neighbors and communities in extraordinary ways. College students creating direct aid programs, providing funds, food, and even temporary housing for one another. Monetary gifts from individuals flooded into food pantries, community health organizations, schools, and social service agencies of all kinds. Small business owners shifted from profit‐making activities to providing free meals for frontline workers and making masks, isolation gowns, and hand sanitizer. Foundations responded by loosening grant restrictions, corporations made public pledges to aid in relief efforts, and both broadened commitments to social justice funding. State and local governments shifted priorities to address the pandemic, and the whole of society adjusted.

      Now, two years later, we know that 2020 was the most generous year on record. Giving USA (2021) recorded $471.44 billion dollars in charitable giving driven by increased contributions from foundations and individuals. Although more difficult to track, direct giving, mutual aid, and other forms of informal giving and helping also appeared to increase in popularity (Stiffman 2021c). Online giving grew exponentially. Almost half of all households reported paying for services not used during pandemic closures such as childcare and gym memberships, while frequenting local businesses for take‐out meals and other needs (Mesch et al. 2020). Most nonprofits survived, battered and exhausted by the crisis, and some with smaller teams than before, but with a sense of relief as operations resumed more normally (Parks 2021). Through it all, fundraisers' work proceeded, bringing new perspectives and practices, and overcoming challenges. As this book goes to press, the learning and adapting continues.

A Strong Tradition

In 1991, when Henry “Hank” Rosso wrote the preface for the first edition of Achieving Excellence in Fund Raising he noted how fundraising changed following World War II, a defining event for his generation. Like Hank's experience, our editorial perspective is shaped by a defining time period. Given the events in 2020 and 2021, this book includes a new section dedicated to contextual factors and evolving conditions. Without certainty of how the past two years will ultimately shape fundraising, we became acutely aware that conditions can change quickly. In years to come, fundraisers must be prepared to adapt more quickly and more intentionally than at any time in the recent past. Thus, throughout the book, we tried to balance innovations and changes in raising money with time‐tested best practices – research that is still emerging as the book is in production – and professional habits honed over years of pre‐pandemic experience. It was also important to us that this edition include many voices and that chapters draw attention to equity and justice in fundraising, including beneficiary representation and rights and ideas from community‐centric fundraising.

      In that first edition, Hank also noted his mission to expand knowledge about fundraising and to serve as a resource to others. He was a pioneer fundraiser and a leading consultant of an era when the fundraising occupation professionalized and the IRS codified nonprofits' tax‐deductible status. He introduced much of what he taught in The Fund Raising School (TFRS) to a larger audience through Achieving Excellence in Fund Raising. Today, that symbiotic relationship continues with TFRS curriculum and materials, inspiring chapter authors and concepts from the book chapters and also providing source material for TFRS courses.

      After Hank's passing, Gene Tempel took on the editorship with a second edition published in 2003. The third edition followed in 2011 with Tim Seiler and Eva Aldrich joining Tempel as editors. Five years later, Tempel and Seiler edited the fourth edition with Dwight Burlingame. Eva now leads CFRE International, the body that oversees the Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) credential. Both Tim and Dwight recently retired after decades of leadership. They all leave an indelible mark on generations of students and professionals, including this volume's editors.

A New Era

      The fifth edition, published in 2022, has been released in tandem with the Lilly Family School's tenth anniversary and nearly 50 years after the founding of TFRS. Gene Tempel has passed the baton of editorial leadership to Genevieve Shaker, associate professor of philanthropic studies and TFRS faculty member, while himself playing a guiding transitional role in the most recent edition – his fourth. Bill Stanczykiewicz, director of TFRS since 2016, has joined the editorial team, as did his TFRS predecessor Tim Seiler (1996–2015) for the prior two editions. Sarah Nathan, who assisted with the third and fourth editions, is a former associate director of TFRS, and serves currently as the executive director of the Middletown Community Foundation.

      Collectively, we have experience as fundraisers and leaders in nonprofits large and small; as board members and volunteer fundraisers; as educators of undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals; and as researchers and writers. We consider ourselves “pracademics” with strong interests in using research to inform the field. We are also perpetual students of philanthropy and fundraising who are humble in our desire to learn and grow.

      This volume also features a new generation of chapter authors, all of whom are Lilly Family School of Philanthropy faculty, staff, alumni, students, and friends, with a number also being affiliated with TFRS.

Of the 54 authors in the volume, 33 are writing chapters for the book for the first time. We are pleased to welcome back authors from previous editions. Several authors' involvement stretches back decades, including Gene Tempel, who has written for every edition since the first, as well as Tim Seiler, Jim Hodge, Marnie Maxwell, and Lilya Wagner – contributors since the second edition. All told, the fifth edition cohort is the most diverse thus far. It is more representative of the fundraising community of today and tomorrow, but we recognize that there is more to be done.

      While preparing this book, we discovered that the previous edition has been used in some 450 colleges and universities. This is indicative of

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