The Mind is a Terrible Thing

While religious practice and belief is one exterior route that has been tried to help us human beings allow our better qualities ascendancy over baser instincts, some thinkers have prompted us to look inward and explore the internal qualities of our spiritual nature as a way to do this. But the mind is a terrible thing: its deviousness defies our attempts to reform it, and relatively few have succeeded in reaching a state of internal balance and peace.

Meanwhile the rest of us struggle to find ways to harness our good qualities and transform our greed and selfishness into socially acceptable patterns. Some among us do better than others, of course, but even in the midst of the wealthiest, most stable and most successful experiment with democracy the world has ever known, we are still very close to the anarchy and mob rule of the jungles from which we evolved. This is evidenced by such visible markers as our penchant for war, our drive for personal or group control, the avarice and deception of our corporate leaders, and our ability to discriminate against our fellows for the sake of our own advancement.

Self-discipline may be the answer, but that in itself is a product of a mind that is essentially bi-polar in nature: as it thinks, it employs two modes simultaneously: goodness and evil. Any scheme we invent within our mind (religion, government, education, business, high tech information) to try to alter our own nature -- or that of others, as in the case of religion -- is bound to have within it both the seeds of the greatest good and those of the most avaricious greed and deceit.

If we couple the qualities of this internal bi-polar human nature with what Cotter terms the "unfathomable disparities of fortune" among members of our race, it is indeed a miracle when we see persons or groups who are able to allow the kindness, creativity, justice and productivity aspects of our nature to have more permanent sway in their lives.

How, then, is charity possible at all? How can we go into the marketplace expecting any person to give significantly to our cause, or any cause? How can we ever expect the members of nonprofit boards to be self-disciplined enough to eschew micro-management and be comfortable doing strategic planning, or giving and soliciting funds? How reasonable is it to expect that an "individualistic" type of person starting a new charity will have the ability and self-discipline to plan first, get the community behind him/her, and then be satisfied with achieving personal gratification later, thus preventing trouble down the road? Are these not, given human nature, unrasonable expectations?

One answer may be that we simplymust "have faith" that sometimes the system works in a way that permits these phenomena to occur. Another perspective may be that we simply "play the numbers" and hope that "this time it will be better." Yet another view could be that we simply let human good and evil have their sway, however it happens, and do the best we can with what we have at the moment but not strive for anything better. But another yearning is to try to give people the excuse, the reasons and the information they need to make better decisions.

This raises the question with which I will end today's post: "In light of the condition in which human gbeings of even the most altruistic motives find themselves, what should be the fundraising consultant's essential task when working with a client nonprofit?"

1. Is the fundraising consultant's task simply to scatter as much educational and informational seed about good fundraising practice as possible in the client organization regardless of the ground on which that seed falls, and heedless of whether client's objectives are likely to produce positive results?

2. Or is the fundraising consultant's task to simply go ahead and help any client achieve whatever objective that client defines for their operation, even though that objective may be rooted in a process that is ill-conceived, or may be delivering an outcome to the client that is unproductive or even self-destructive over the long haul?

3. Or is the fundraising consultant's task one of intervention in a client's process, regardless of objective and desired outcome, to correct that process and help the client create a better, more achievable, more positive objective before assisting in the achievement of that objective?

The way I have been practicing these past ten years is a combination of the three. I have tried to sow as much educational and informational seed as possible, but have tried to plant those seeds in as many open and fertile minds as I can find. I have helped clients achieve objectives they have defined for their operations, but have endeavored to point out potential trouble that exists or that I see on the horizon given the facts of their organizational life as I can determine them. And I have attempted to provide intervention processes when clients indicate a willingness to undergo the changes necessary to achieve greater fundraising potential.

We'll get back to our main theme of start-up nonprofits tomorrow. There will be no afternoon post today.