EPISODE 108
Episode 108 of Tales From the Trenches Tuesdays features Penny Harris, a coach for non-profit leaders including fundraisers, reminding us to focus on the mission to renew donors and make them partners providing a community service. For more than 35 years, Penny has been challenging conventional fundraising wisdom, and her approach is refreshingly simple: stop obsessing over the money and start focusing on the mission.
In this episode of Tales from the Trenches, Penny shared insights from a career built on community service rather than traditional development training. Her breakthrough came at Eastern Maine Medical Center during her first capital campaign to build a children’s floor. Despite limited formal training, she ran the staff campaign like a community effort, establishing clear ethical boundaries—no supervisors could solicit their subordinates. The result? More employees gave than ever before, and they gave larger amounts. The campaign raised funds from 3,300 donors in just 13 months. Major donor Stephen King cut the ribbon alongside a young patient with cystic fibrosis who had wondered if he’d live to see the new facility completed.
It’s not about the money. It’s about how you feel and how you’re connected to the mission.
When she encounters CEOs anxiously asking where they’ll find donors, she redirects them to their mission—what they’re doing in the community and who benefits. Once leaders reconnect with their purpose, donor engagement follows naturally.
Penny believes fundraising vocabulary itself creates problems. Terms like “retention” make fundraisers feel responsible for donor decisions, robbing donors of their agency. She prefers “renewal” because it centers the donor’s choice rather than the organization’s goal. Similarly, she challenges the obsession with year-end giving deadlines and thank-you walls with donor names, noting that a seven-figure donor once told her that having their name on a building was their worst giving experience.
Her message to fundraisers is clear: people don’t give to budgets or campaigns—they give to make their communities better. Every nonprofit exists because community members wanted it there. When organizations celebrate the money instead of the mission and the generosity that made it possible, they’ve fundamentally misunderstood their work. The role of fundraisers isn’t to retain gifts; it’s to invite people to join in serving something larger than themselves.
Just click on the picture of Penny below to hear a snippet of our conversation.
L’chaim,
jack
