Current e-Journal

Catalytic Thinking Exercise:
Fundraising without Scarcity

Next year’s budget. Argh. Few of us face this task with joy. Having been taught the zero-based budgeting that is the norm in this sector, we start over every year from scratch. Our programs are line item expenses, and every year we must find inventive ways to cover those expenses.

There is an alternative to that scarcity-laden approach. That alternative can change everything about how you think about budgeting and fundraising.

We’re talking about an asset-based approach to your budget.

An asset-based approach sees your mission not as an expense item, but as an asset upon which to build. Through an asset-based lens, your programs have people assets and resources, “stuff” assets and resources, and mission / knowledge / programmatic assets and resources.

In this newsletter, we’ll be focusing on one more set of resources we forget we have to build upon: The assets and resources of everyone else in your community.

That is the approach of Collective Enoughness.

Collective Enoughness is the economic theory that together we have everything we need. When we apply that theory in practice, we experience the mutuality that happens when all parties receive benefit, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts because all parties are building upon what they already have.

As we step into the final 3 years of our mission at Creating the Future, we’ve been thinking about this a lot. We know Creating the Future has a ton to build upon. What could it look like to generate the resources we need by building upon those assets?

In some cases, it will mean partnering with groups who already have some of what we need, the heart and soul of Collective Enoughness. For example, if a group is already doing video production or podcast production, we will seek to partner with them to help build out our online library.

We will also begin building upon Creating the Future’s educational resources, offering those resources to foundations and large organizations for their own use with their grantees and/or teams. In addition to providing us with financial support, those partners will be broadly sharing Catalytic Thinking – accomplishing our mission in the very process of resourcing that mission!

Every organization, no matter how small or remote, exists in a community with myriad assets and resources upon which to build that spirit of Collective Enoughness. Taking this approach is a way of saying NO to power dynamics and scarcity, and saying YES to the mutuality of “we all win together.”

That leads to the question at the heart of this week’s Catalytic Thinking exercise:

What could Collective Enoughness look like in YOUR work?

Try this:
Asset-based approaches build on what we already have. That could be relationships, or physical stuff (like office space or a vehicle). It could be knowledge resources and mission resources (your programs, your skills, your bookkeeper).

While we may all start each year with no CASH, that is not true for ACTUAL RESOURCES – the stuff that cash would buy us. When we expand our idea of “resources” to include ALL resources, including the resources of everyone else in our community, we begin to see that we all have a ton to build upon.

We’ve all seen organizations share space or share a van. At Creating the Future, we’ve seen organizations share their volunteer coordinator, their grant writers, their social media presence.

To start thinking through the lens of Collective Enoughness, ask…

1. What real resources do you need? (Not money – the stuff the money would buy you).
2. Who already has that? Who is already doing that?

Right now, as you look at your budget through the lens of those questions, consider what you might find by partnering with others. (Bonus points if you start to consider what resources you already have that you might share with others, like we are doing with our education programs!)

Unlike the competitive, scarcity mindset of chasing dollars, Collective Enoughness is rooted in the abundance of real resources that are all around us and are easy to share. Seeing our programs as assets to build upon vs. sink-holes of expenses frees us up to build creativity and relationship into our work. Here at Creating the Future, we have seen many cases where the spirit of Collective Enoughness has turned competitors into partners.

When we change the way we see things, things really do change.

Which means that in addition to all the other benefits, asset-based approaches just feel better. And all those reasons are why Collective Enoughness is such a critical part of the Catalytic Thinking framework.

Resources to Further Your Practice:

• LEARN: Want to learn how to identify and build upon assets you already have, that are hiding in plain sight? Start here…
• EXPLORE: Right now, you can join the movement to reimagine how communities are resourced. Check out the work of the New Economy Coalition. Tons of great resources and ideas here…
• READ: What would it take for your organization’s efforts to be more movement-like? Find out here…