Magic Of Throwing Money Out A Window
ServiceSpace
--Rahul Brown
2 minute read
Mar 3, 2015

 

Prior to our Business and Values circle last weekend, we asked participants to share a bit about their journeys. To the question of "What is your greatest inspiration?",
 

Magic. My job in this lifetime is to create magic in a broken world. I am always looking for the places where magic can make a difference- faith in someone, laughter, a kind act at the right moment- it is all fairy dust to me. Yes, I said broken world, deliberately. The world is perfect, whole and complete. And so many of us experience the brokenness of it. The difference between that sense of faith that it is all ok, and the sense of profound brokenness- is magic.

And to the question of, "What has been your greatest triumph?", she wrote:
 
My team raised $1M by throwing money out a window.

As a nonprofit leader, there is always a large part of my job that requires raising funds. Yet traditional fundraising in nonprofits is fraught with scarcity, competition and leads itself to what I sometimes consider to be a form of prostitution. Fundraisers kiss up to the people with more money, we often say yes to things to get the money when really it is not in our best interests to take the money. We bend over backwards for funders, pretending we aren't inconvenienced. The power dynamics are complex and it is very easy to get caught up in them.

When I was running my last nonprofit, we were in a financial crunch as so often start up nonprofits are. So instead of contracting around the fear and impending crisis, I created a practice where every day i would go to the office and open up the window on the 13th floor of a building in downtown Oakland, and throw dollars out the window. It allowed me to let go of my sense of contraction and far- and reminded me that I am committed to a flow of resources - that money finds where it needs to go- and that ultimately it only has the meaning we give it. After doing this for a few weeks, and having staff start joining me in curiosity, we received a call that someone who we had been cultivating as a donor, was giving us $1,000,000. It was the first $1,000,000 I've ever been part of raising.
     
 

Posted by Rahul Brown on Mar 3, 2015


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