I Never Knew There Was Another Way to Fundraise

Photo by Tamas Pap.

I'm newer to animal welfare. And animal welfare, for the most part, is not new to me — in the sense that I've led nonprofits before, I know how to build donor relationships, I know how to run a fundraising campaign, I know how to ask for money.

But I walked into this sector and felt, for the first time in my career, like someone who doesn't know how to fundraise.

Not because I don't. Because animal welfare is one of the whitest sectors within the nonprofit sector, and the fundraising culture here was already set before I arrived. The donor networks, the pet galas, the cultivation cycles — all of it built and maintained largely by people who don't look like me, trained in a model I never formally learned.

This week, I attended my first AFP (Association of Fundraising Professionals) conference. And I went in clear-eyed: I wanted to understand the model. I wanted to take what's useful. I've been doing this long enough to know that no single framework has a monopoly on good practice.

But I also went in knowing something about myself. I only ever learned to fundraise one way. And for a long time, I didn't even know it had a name.

The Only Fundraising I Knew

You show up before you ask. You build trust before you pitch. You treat a $10 donor the same way you treat a $10,000 donor — because in the communities I came from, the $10 donor is your neighbor, your board member's cousin, the person who shows up every single time you need bodies in a room. You don't tiered-stewardship your way through that relationship. You just show up for people.

That's how I fundraised across three organizations. Not because I read it somewhere. Because it was the only thing that made sense given where I was, who I was serving, and who was in the room with me.

Communities of color have been fundraising this way for a long time. Before GIFT named it in 1996. Before CCF branded it in 2019. Mutual aid networks, rotating savings circles, deep-community donor bases built on reciprocity and accountability. The practice didn't wait for a framework. It just ran — because it had to.

What AFP Gets Right

Here's what I was genuinely curious about when I walked into this conference: discipline.

The AFP model is built around donor touches — consistent, systematic outreach that keeps donors connected to your organization over time. Major gift cultivation. Stewardship plans. Disqualification of donors from a relationship fundraising model if they don't meet a certain threshold of giving. There's a rigor to it that grassroots fundraising doesn't always have, because grassroots fundraising often runs on relationships and instinct rather than systems.

That's a real gap. I've seen it in my own practice. The relationship is there. The system to sustain it at scale sometimes isn't.

Where We Diverge

But here's where I won't follow the model: AFP's version of donor touches is tiered. The higher the gift level, the more contact. Major donors get personal calls, private tours, handwritten notes. Smaller donors get the newsletter and maybe a thank-you email.

That logic makes sense if your goal is to maximize return on investment per donor. It doesn't make sense if your goal is to build a community of people who are genuinely invested in your mission.

The $10 donor who gave because they believe in the work — who shows up to your events, who tells their friends, who has been with you for five years — that person deserves the same relational investment. Not because it's nice. Because that's where your power base lives. Major donors can leave. Community donors are harder to shake.

Grassroots fundraising figured that out a long time ago.

What It Means to Navigate This as a BIPOC Leader

Walking into AFP this week, I was one of the few BIPOC leaders in the room. That's not a complaint. It's a data point.

It means the fundraising wisdom that built the sector I'm now in — the donor networks, the cultivation models, the institutional knowledge — was largely built without people who look like me in mind. That's not a reason to reject it. It's a reason to enter it carefully, take what serves the mission, and stay honest about what doesn't translate.

BIPOC leaders navigating predominantly white sectors face a particular pressure: to adopt the dominant model wholesale, to speak the sector's language fluently, to stop fundraising like you grew up fundraising and start fundraising like the room expects.

🔥 Firebrand Challenge

If you're a BIPOC leader new to a predominantly white sector: you are not behind. Your fundraising instincts are not wrong. They are just being tested in a room that wasn't built with you in mind.

Take what's useful. Leave what assumes a donor base, a network, or a set of relationships you didn't inherit. And keep showing up for the $10 donor — because that relationship is not a consolation prize. It's the foundation.

The synthesis is possible. But only if you stay clear about what you already know.