If Dante had been a fundraiser, his Inferno might have been slightly different, featuring the evils specific to fundraisers. I have corrected Dante's oversight. This is part two of a nine-part tour of all the levels of Fundraising Hell.
We enter now Fundraising Hell for Real, where the ugly stuff starts happening. This second level is where Lustful fundraisers end up. They are the people who spent their careers lusting after shiny new things (usually technology) and neglected what really worked.
They were bored with "old" fundraising vehicles, like direct mail or email. They loved saying things like Direct mail is dead, when there was no evidence whatsoever that it was anywhere close to an end.
Every time a new social site was launched, they slobbered all over it, eager to believe that this was the Next Big Thing that was going to kill direct mail, email, Facebook, etc.
Their more technical, the more exciting, in their eyes. If it required donors to buy new hardware, download new software, or be tech-savvy and cutting-edge -- the Lustful couldn't keep their hands off it: QR codes!
Their punishment in Fundraising Hell: to be endlessly blown around by the wind. With no anchors, no mastery, no faith in what is already proven, they were in life -- and are in the afterlife -- helpless, without control, unconnected, lost.
Want to avoid the second circle of Fundraising Hell? Commit yourself to the fundraising channels and methods that have shown themselves to work. Become a master of those things. Don't ignore the new, but don't lose yourself to it.
Next Monday -- Level 3: The Gluttonous
Previous level: Level 1: Virtuous Unbelievers
