. . .by assuming you know what it has to look like.

I’ve been assuming my lack of traditional nonprofit fundraising experience was a serious obstacle on my path toward helping small nonprofits build the foundation they need to become sustainable organizations.

I’m starting to think it’s an advantage.

I don’t have 15+ years experience asking wealthy donors for money– but neither does Catherine–and she raised the money for her personal trip to BlogWorld (including airfare from Australia!) from her website and twitter followers.*

Would she have made that attempt if she “knew” that in this economy, people are only giving to social service organizations? Or that only people over 40 have enough disposable income to make donations? Or even that raising money on the internet isn’t “quite ready for prime-time”?

Raising money isn’t (just) about the cause. It’s about the relationships and, perhaps most importantly, it’s about the chance to be a part of something awesome.

So here on Low Hanging Fruit, we are going to give a little less weight to “traditional fundraising wisdom” and see what there is to learn from these Third Tribe marketing peeps.

*and this is why I don’t want to hear about how impossible it is to raise money in this economy.