The Power of Handwritten

Fundraising is about relationship-building…that’s 101.

Most times this relationship-building doesn’t have to cost very much, just some extra effort…that’s 102.

So why are so many mass holiday e-cards coming across my transom…and so few hand-written notes?

Sure, there’s the idea of not wasting paper… but wasting is consumption with an inappropriately low level of return – resources being squandered. Wasting is different than using, investing, carefully calculating the footprint and the benefit – that’s the nonprofit manager’s stock in trade.

Investing in results? A hand-written note of appreciation for a donor, a board member, somebody who’s given you some free advice, a vendor who’s always cut a little extra cheese off the block (and given you some slack when you paid for it slowly)… those are resources well-spent for the lubrication in human relations gained.

Practicing outcomes management? For those of us who exist through “the kindness of strangers” the outcome is that little extra that those of us who can’t “buy” our way through the world need, in order to pull a rabbit out of the hat, again and again.

It’s not random. As any businessperson knows, kindness out = kindness back (or something like that).

And the handwritten message on that card?

You notice. You respect. You connect.