Passion for Your Cause
Are you passionate about your cause? Do you write letters, make presentations, and ask donors for gifts because it is your job or because you have passion?
This past month I had the opportunity to teach a session at the Christian Community Development Association’s (CCDA) National Conference in New Orleans. It was my first time with this group and I was very impressed. First, there were over 3000 in attendance, with ages ranging from young to old. The passion they have for the inner city, the poor, and for God was contagious. I found their eagerness to learn and do more very contagious.
Are you still passionate about your cause? If you have gotten a little worn out, dry, or even a little skeptical it is time for a passion check.
As we are at the fall giving season, here are a few ideas to renew your passion for your cause:
- Go witness your organization in action first hand. If your organization has a local place or center where the work takes place, visit them there. Take your entire development team if possible. Visit the school, talk to the homeless, serve a meal, etc. See it again to refresh your passion.
- Read a testimony of someone who has been helped by your organization. Listen to someone tell their story. Make it personal.
- Reread your case for support. If it supposed to move a donor, it should move you and your development team as well. Find out something you did not know or forgot that you did. Refresh your info.
- Finally, refresh yourself with why you do what you do. Not many people understand the ministry of development. You are special and your understanding of how to involve stewards in great causes is a unique work. It is really a calling. You are doing a job that most people think is too hard, something no one wants to do. But YOU DO IT! You have the privilege of seeing your cause first-hand and then connecting stewards to that cause. Yours is a great job as I see it.
I hope you stay refreshed while you are in the busy fall and year-end giving season. This is the time to get excited about what you do and how you help people.