The mistakes we’ve made in our careers as fundraisers. You know the ones I’m talking about. The times where you walked out the CEO’s or major’s donor’s office, smacking yourself on the forehead when the door closed behind you. Hindsight - don’t leave home without it.

At least on some level, sheep like behaviour around the wealthy is often apparent. They are rich. Therefore they know better than us and know how we should live our lives. Or do they?

Will Bezos be able to disperse the almost $18+ billion she’s pledged (from what I’ve read, it’s easier said than done) while avoiding some of the spectacular oopsies some of her fellow billionaires have made?

What is ‘philanthrocapitalism’? The term first appeared around 2006, and is used to describe the need for philanthropy to change itself to become more like the for-profit sector.

We’re complex beings and much of what forms our behaviour lies beneath the surface - of our brains. We think and believe wholeheartedly, that we make decisions and choices based on rational thought - after all, we are logical, rational creatures, aren’t we?

Fundraisers spend a lot of time and effort listening to donors and supporters, being donor-centric. Unfortunately, this leads them to think the way to understand donors and their behaviour is to listen to them. What follows is five reasons why you shouldn’t just listen based on research.

Expenses. The cost of fundraising. Impact. We’re constantly challenged to justify the first two with often scant attention paid to the third. Demonstrating our impact. How do we accomplish that? One way is to learn from the private sector.

When board chairs and executives are questioned about where improvement is needed, the research indicates fundraising is the most often selected response. I think it’s imperative that we give it more attention.

How would you rate your not for profit’s board? Would you give it a passing grade or…? What are some topics you would want to include in a conversation about and with your board to strengthen its performance?

If we believe that culture is important, and that everyone in the organization understands the role philanthropy plays in achieving the mission, then perhaps this can turn the ever-plaguing discussion of overhead and costs on its head.

Most of us would prefer to avoid the ‘elephant in the room’, whether it’s in our personal or professional lives. Opening a discussion about difficult topics is never easy. As fundraisers and not for profit organizations, I think we need to have these discussions.

As the annual celebration for International Women’s Day is just a few days away, we are fundraisers and many of us raise money for causes and organizations that deal with the ramifications, either directly or indirectly, of gender imbalance.

I’m all for advocating that we need to stand out with our initiatives or suffer the consequences of going unnoticed. That’s a given. But when does attention-seeking cross the line?

What’s a fundraiser to do when there’s no money coming in? Are you brave enough, do you have enough courage to continue the good fight during these times? Can you keep brandishing your fundraising weapons as a barrage of rejections are flung at you?

One of the great lessons from this economic downturn (or at any time for that matter) is that dependence on one supplier for anything — customers, funders, employment and so on — makes for poor strategy. What do you do in an economic downturn?

When the transfer of accumulated wealth by the baby boomer generation to millennials starts to occur, if even a small percentage of these inherited funds is used philanthropically, it will shift the giving landscape in a meaningful way.