These Tomatoes
are from one of many harvests from last summer. My garden that started as tiny seeds just a few months before was producing faster than we could eat it. I ate fresh tomatoes every time I walked by and ate whole tomatoes like apples with my lunch. We gave away bagfuls to friends and neighbors. We made salsa and froze leftovers in bags. We made spaghetti sauce and tomato soup, then bottled and dried more to use through the winter.
Yet at the end of the season, we still had more tomatoes on the vine than we had in May.
Like tomatoes, wealth and philanthropy is not fixed–it grows.
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Philanthropy is a tiny fraction of wealth.
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Donors often grow wealth faster than they give it away.
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Abundance creates opportunities for resource development.
$92.8 Trillion
Is the total U.S. household net worth, The Wall Street Journal reports on March 9, 2017. Yes, that’s a T, or $92,800,000,000,000. It’s up 5.4%, or $4.7 trillion from $87.3 trillion one year ago!
Total philanthropic giving in 2015 totalled $373 billion, which was 4.1% more than 2014. If we assume giving grew at the same rate in 2016 (data is not yet available), that would be roughly $378 billion given away last year.
That means in total, people gave way about 0.41% of total household net worth in 2016. They gave only 8% of the $4.7 trillion INCREASE in wealth last year.
Nationally, our wealth grew 92% faster than we could give it away!
So–donors haven’t given away their last dollar.
And there are many, many more in donations to come. In fact, more than $78 billion is in donor advised funds, which donors have already given and must distribute to charitable organizations eventually. Contributions to donor advised funds are also growing 53% faster than distributions!
This won’t continue forever.
Of course, wealth is cyclical and at some point in the future, we’ll see a correction as we have in the past in which wealth actually declines. And a large portion of this increased wealth is in land and real estate–much of it in people’s homes they live in.
But the trend demonstrates something important about a philanthropic mindset–for both donors and recipients.
But there is no fixed pie.
Nonprofits are not just competing with each other to see who can get the most from a fixed, limited total amount of money available for philanthropy. Even in economic declines, when giving doesn’t continue to grow, it remains a tiny fraction of overall wealth.
As giving grows, wealth grows.
Many donors are absolutely convinced that their giving actually increases their wealth! Some feel they receive blessings from God for caring for His children, others feel they are motivated to increase their own productivity and improve their health. Whatever the explanation, I’ve seen this at work personally with many donors I’ve known.
The most famous example if this is Bill Gates, with net worth of $86.6 billion in 2017. Gates has already given away $36 billion, has been working full-time to give away his money since 2006, and now has 1,440 people working full time to help him in the world’s largest foundation. He has saved hundreds of millions of lives, and will soon completely eradicate Polio worldwide.
Yet, in 2008, his net worth was $58 billion.
Even while giving away $36 billion, Bill Gates’ net worth INCREASED 50%! That’s $29 billion more than he had to begin with!
At the same time, massive amounts of new wealth is rapidly being created among incredibly young people with massive potential for the future. For example, Mark Zuckerberg now has $58 billion that was zero just 12 years ago. At age 32, with a one-year-old child, Mark and Chan have already pledged to give away 99% of his stock.
When Zuckerberg made his December 1, 2015 gift announcement, his stock was worth $45 billion. In the two years since then, Facebook stock is up 30%, an increase of $13.5 billion in Zuckerberg’s wealth in just over one year!
You just can’t spend that much money on vacations and fancy lunches.
And, even giving in $3 billion chunks, Zuckerberg’s wealth still grows much faster than he can give it away.
This happens with your donors.
The numbers with Zuckerberg and Gates are so massive they’re hard to imagine. But throughout my career, I’ve seen these patterns at work with hundreds of people at all levels of the wealth spectrum.
People don’t give their last dollar, including people on your mailing list and at your events.
And when they do give, the wealth they have left continues to grow–often much faster than they are giving it away. For every donor who has given as much as they are willing to, there are many more who have never been asked.
The abundance mentality impacts philanthropy.
Your outlook, strategy, and asking mindset changes when you understand that wealth is created, not limited and fixed, and that individual donors continue to create more wealth, even as they give. Still others would give, but are never or rarely asked.
Here are a few ways abundance impacts fundraising:
1) Don’t stress about competition.
Too many fundraisers worry about how many other capital campaigns are currently happening in their state. They stress about which fundraiser or consultant is working with which nonprofit. They worry who else is asking the five most famous people in their community for money.
Don’t be that person. Remember abundance. Wealth grows.
Although there are limits to the total capital that some individuals in your community can contribute, overall wealth continues to grow. There are 10.4 million millionaires in the U.S. Many of them are already on your list, and come to your events. Many are willing and interested in giving, yet have not been asked personally with a proposal that meets their specific interests and goals.
2) Don’t be ashamed, afraid, or embarassed to ask.
That leadership donor to your capital campaign three years ago most likely now has even more wealth then she did when you asked her the last time. Now, if you’ve kept in touch and become friends, she’s even more committed to your cause and is looking for some way to put that growing wealth to good use. Your request for your next important project helps her self-actualize in Maslow’s hierachy of needs!
There are others on your list who are less well known, and would give, but are never being approached.
3) Prioritize individual major gifts.
Remember all that wealth created by Microsoft and Facebook ended up with people. Those two companies’ total giving isn’t remotely close to the giving of their owners, and nationally only 5% of total giving comes from companies. Unlike companies with pressure to make profits, owners are people with human emotions, feelings, and understandings who are motivated by compassion to improve the human condition. They want to leave a legacy and make the world a better place.
You can help them reach their dreams.
Just like the tomatoes in my garden, donor relationships that are cultivated with integrity can produce far beyond your expectations. The potential for growth, wealth creation, and philanthropic giving is truly amazing!