Worst Fundraising Jargon
Friday, August 27th, 2010On www.linkedin.com, there is a group for those of us who have CFRE after our names – Certified Fund Raising Executives. It allows us to compare notes, ask questions, and share tales of fundraising among our peers. Recently, someone posted a question asking, “Just for fun – What is the fundraising jargon you hate most?” Within days this had received dozens of responses. I thought I would post the answers here – no names, although it’s a public posting so you can go over to LinkedIn and join our group if you want to follow this.
In order of posting, here are the worst jargon examples of words and phrases that people hate the most:
(After a failed event) “Well, at least we raised awareness.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
“Why can’t we just ask Oprah?”
“There’s money out there! Why haven’t we applied to the XXX Foundation?”
“Why isn’t the newspaper/press covering all the good things we’re doing?”
“We’ll have a golf tournament and get table prizes from all the businesses in town.”
“But we have always done it XXX way.”
“We tried that once before, years ago, and it didn’t work.”
“Prospects”
“LYBUNT”
“SYBUNT”
“Let’s hit up So-and-So”
“Soliciting”
“Moves Management”
“Best practices”
“Programs”
“Services”
“ROI”
“But that’s not in the budget”
(Referring to potential donors) “Low-hanging fruit”
“The non-profit industry”
“Talk like a CEO to hook a CEO”
“Friend-raising”
“Let’s get a celeb!”
“CPDR”
“5.5XTCE”
”CSR”
“CRM”
“HALO”
“Pedants”
“Every little bit helps”
“People give to people, not organizations”
“Let’s hold a no-show (ball, gala, event, etc.)”
“Donor centered”
“Suspects”
“Targets”
“Alum” when you mean Alumni
“Nonprofits need to run more like a business”
As for my own pet peeves, I would add:
From the board member asked to donate: “I give my time”
From board members asked to fundraise, “No one told me I’d have to fundraise” or “Fundraising really isn’t my strength; I’m on this board for other reasons”
From board members who range from a government employee to a stock broker, “I can’t fundraise because it would be a conflict with my job”
From executive directors with non-fundraising boards: “We drafted them as a working board”
On events that don’t raise much money, “But the volunteers love doing it every year!” or “We’re not going to make anything on ticket sales, but we’ll make it up on silent auction items.”
Or for a big amount, “We can ask (non-involved wealthy person). He could do it all just by himself.”
Do you have a word or phrase in fundraising that just drives you crazy? Write to me, Katherine Wertheim, CFRE, at katherine@werth-it.com.