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Once upon a time in a market far, far away, I worked at FORTUNE Magazine. In retrospect, selling advertising in FORTUNE had a lot of similarities to fundraising. It was a great magazine with a specific editorial mission that competed for dollars with a lot of other fine magazines and newspapers. During my time there, an editorial colleague posed this fascinating question: “What are the sexiest six words in advertising?” I’ve never forgotten how he answered it and have made it one of my fundraising mantras to live by.

Donors typically support ten charities a year, with most of their giving focused on about four. Now I’ve never had the good fortune to work for somebody’s “favorite” charity. I really couldn’t afford to have that scarcity mentality, where a fundraiser thinks that the entire donor’s giving just has to go to their organization. I was abundancy mentality all the way, baby.