Jimmy LaRose, author and fundraiser, challenges donors to give charities what they really need, their minds more than their money.

Hartsville, SC - Richard Puffer recently finished reading a new book by Jimmy LaRose named RE-IMAGINING PHILANTHROPY. This thought-provoking 145 page hard cover encapsulates the advice LaRose has been giving his clients for a number of years. It’s advice that doesn’t go down easy does not always make him popular in the non-profit industry. LaRose, who is based in Lexington, S.C., shares a challenging message that has received a good bit of blow back in much of the non-profit world.

Why the blow back? Well, LaRose is telling non-profits they need to do a better job of serving their primary clients while at the same time telling them the primary client is not the person receiving the non-profit’s services but the person and the people supplying the funds to sustain the non-profit’s work.

To learn more about Jimmy LaRose and RE-IMAGINING PHILANTHROPY please visit: https://JimmyLaRose.com

Throughout his book and the videos and other materials in which he shares his ideas, which are bed rocked in the statement, Money is more important than mission (or Ministry). (p 30)

With his unblinking focus on money, which he terms the oxygen of the non-profit system, he then concludes that donors are more important than causes or people. (p 33)

Who is the actual “client”/ “customer?”

And as he continues to build his argument in that first chapter of his book, his next major position is that the customers, clients or non-profits are not those who are served but those whose money pays for the services. His in-your-face statement in positive terms is: Successful nonprofits understand that donors are the object of their mission and must be served before people in need. (p34)

Reading this as the executive director of a grant making organization (a donor organization) RE-IMAGINING PHILANTHROPY immediately revealed itself to be rooted in a very provocative frame around which to discuss how philanthropy might work. As a donor organization Byerly Foundation works with non-profits to help them achieve amazing goals and succeed in making a positive difference in the life of people and the structure of community. The Byerly Foundation never thought of donors as the customers of the non-profit.

Regardless, RE-IMAGINING PHILANTHROPY provokes new ideas for strategy and tactics in both fund raising and organization management.

Example of Mission Statements Changing:

Puffer does not try to provide all the arguments or assess the arguments. His goal is to make the reader aware of the argument that's out there and the direction the argument takes. e.g. LaRose gives of a typical mission statement:

Harvest Town Food Bank exists to provide a community’s hurting, hungry, and homeless the clothing, food, and nutritional care they so desperately need. (p 35)

Now, here is that mission rewritten with a new audience as focus:

Harvest Town Food Bank provides donors, volunteers, and advocated the organization they require to serve a community’s hurting, hungry and homeless.

Opening New Discussion:

Once the readers sees what LaRose means in terms of "mission" it begins to make more sense and leads to multiple discussions if not a better understanding that may need to be part of building stronger, more sustainable non-profit organizations.

To learn more about The Byerly Foundation visit: http://www.byerlyfoundation.com/

To read the original post by Richard Puffer please visit: http://www.byerlyfoundation.com/fundraiser-provoke...