Fundraising doesn’t just feel harder than it used to – in many organisations, it has become harder by design.
In this presentation, I bring together two connected ideas. First: the persistent things fundraisers get wrong about fundraising – what we over-value, what we chase, and what we quietly neglect. Second: how the wider fundraising ecosystem now rewards those mistakes, amplifies them, and gradually makes them feel like best practice.
We’ll explore common assumptions that sound sensible but repeatedly damage income – believing novelty beats familiarity, mistaking internal excitement for donor motivation, confusing brand fashion with trust, and assuming Millennials will save us if only we change how we fundraise. These aren’t individual failings. They’re learned behaviours – reinforced by conferences, awards, agencies, boards, and social approval.
Using the idea of the theory of enshittification developed by Dr Cory Doctorow, I’ll show how fundraising has drifted away from serving donors and beneficiaries, and toward serving intermediaries, short-term validation, and reputational signalling. Over time, this shift corrodes habit, weakens donor confidence, and strips value from the very income streams organisations depend on.
Crucially, this isn’t an argument against creativity, progress, or change. It’s an argument for re-anchoring fundraising legitimacy in outcomes that matter, like retention, lifetime value, donor confidence, and institutional strength over time – not applause on LinkedIn or approval in the room.
The session closes with a practical reset – how leaders and fundraisers can resist distorted incentives, rebuild donor-centred decision-making, and protect the long-term assets they’re trusted to steward.
