That early experience in Shelby was the beginning of my own picture of what I want the world to look like. As the "Yes we did!" banner was stretched across Main Street, I saw it all around me: People striding down the street with little smiles on their faces, aware of what they'd accomplished, feeling their oats. It showed only slightly, but it was there: People with renewed confidence in their abilities and a stronger sense of self-efficacy.
After all, I knew it was the strengthening of this identity that both led to the financial success of Shelby's campaign and grew out of their achievement.
Still, an important question remains: Why do people invest themselves in society? If we want to draw even more people to contribute their time and money to the common good, it would be useful to understand why people do these things.
I've been wondering about this for a long time. At age 22, I had just joined Ketchum Inc. as its youngest consultant. My first day on the job, I naively asked, "Why do people volunteer? Why do they give money?"
I'm still fascinated by these questions. But I've given up on trying to answer them in any definitive way.
The president of a global relief organization once asked me, "We know a lot about why people give through direct mail. But what about major donors--why do they give?"
I replied, "I don't know." (Imagine that!)
The executive vice president, who had taken me into the president's office, squirmed in his seat. "Jim, just this morning you were saying ...." He tried again, "I remember reading in your book ...."
"Yes, I'm aware of all of that," I answered, "but still I don't know."
Of course, there are plenty of ways to explain the origins of giving. While theologians look to divine guidance, evolutionary biologists puzzle over the survival value of seemingly unselfish acts. Psychologists talk about "cognitive dissonance," the desire to unite our behavior with our values. Theories abound.
Such attempts at universal explanations are intriguing. But I'm much more interested in learning from the lived experience of an individual human being. Rather than believe that I have people in general (or any person in particular) figured out, I want to stay curious and in wonder. Standing shoulder to shoulder with another, I want to have a genuine exploration of the meaning contained in that person's actions.
As a bonus, my experience has been that this approach energizes the will and initiative of the individual, and thus holds the greatest potential to activate contributions that are even more significant (both in meaning to the individual and in amount).
This learning benefits more than me. For starters, staying curious gives the person a chance to develop their understanding of the dynamics at work in themselves and their contributions. That personal understanding is one of the most powerful pieces of knowledge they can bring with them into the organizations or causes in which they are most engaged.
Here's a simple example from the way staff at the University of Michigan prepared for a $3 billion campaign. In the middle of a flip chart, we wrote the name of a gentleman who had made one of the largest commitments to the university. Then the small group offered factors and conditions that they believed had influenced that person's decision to invest. They included even something as seemingly small as a casual comment made by the receptionist.
As we began to discover the lively interplay between all parts of the system, we created our own theory of contribution, a theory distinctive to the university's history, culture, and community, and to the particular individual. Such a specific, complex, nuanced understanding stands in sharp contrast to the more usual view that contribution results from simple, generic cause-and-effect mechanisms.
Afterward, the key staff leader said that with all they knew and all of the success they had had, this was the first time she had understood deeply why someone would give to the university.
A close look at the experience of just one person can yield more home-truths than all the surveys and feasibility studies we can conduct and all the quantitative research we can study. The answers are found in the systemic swirl of forces and conditions inside and around the person and those closest to him.
(Notice I said closest to "him," rather than to the university. And notice that he gave the money, rather than the staff raising it. Sometimes it's a good idea to think of our favorite institution as something other than the center of the universe.)
I've had the good fortune to work with other universities and groups that seek to invite their philanthropic partners (the people who are more often called "donors") to raise their own sights by taking part in such an inquiry.
More often, insiders feel the heat generated by "needs" and push for quick results. So they issue requests for funds on a schedule dictated by internally defined necessity, rather than by the individual's growing sense of significance and self-efficacy. Lost completely is the far greater "oomph" that would have come from allowing the individual's own volition to emerge.
If you want to know how to raise money, I have a book for you: this one. Really. Take another look through this book with that question on your mind. After all, this book is about how people tend to behave when their contributory selves are present.