This article contains spoilers for Die Hard. The movie is over 30 years old, so hopefully, that is not a problem for you. If you have not seen it, I suggest you stop what you’re doing and make that happen now. You don’t have to celebrate Christmas to enjoy this film, but it is the best Christmas movie of all time. Now that I have either made you my best friend or alienated you forever with that statement, let’s get into it!
You may not have realized it, but Die Hard contains some valuable and timely insights for fundraising professionals.
Relationship Building Works Even Virtually
Fundraising work is all about building relationships. Over the past couple of years, as we needed to physically distance to protect ourselves and our neighbors from the COVID-19 pandemic, building those relationships in a world where we have not had the option of meeting face to face has been a challenge for many of us. But John McClane and Sargeant Al Powell are a great demonstration of how to build a relationship without meeting in person! After a whole movie of only communicating via radio, when they do meet in person, they hug as if they are old friends. Without having seen one another’s faces, they’ve forged a bond.
We can do the same thing with our donors. We may turn to tools such as cell phones and zoom instead of walkie-talkies, but we should communicate frequently and include a combination of conversations about our mission and personal stories that allow us to build authentic relationships with the people who share our vision for the work our organizations do.
Putting Energy into the Right Relationships
Our time is limited. There probably isn’t a literal ticking time bomb to worry about in our offices like there was in Nakatomi Tower, but we still have deadlines and pressure in our work. It’s important that we think strategically about who we spend our time on. If we are lucky, we feel really passionate about our mission, and want the whole world to see it and support it. But some donors are just not going to be the right fit for our work. It’s kind of like how there are a lot of approaches that law enforcement could take in order to save the hostages from Hans Gruber. John McClane focused on building relationships and investing his time in people and strategies that were aligned with him – and did not waste his precious time on people who were never going to see things his way.
Keep the Focus on the Community
Die Hard’s villain Hans Gruber was in it for the money. But the biggest problem John McClane set out to solve wasn’t protecting the money from theft – it was protecting the lives of the people who were in danger that night. This is perhaps the biggest lesson of all for us in fundraising. While “funds” are often right there in our job title, our work is not ultimately about the money. It is about people’s lives. It is about treating or curing illness, it is about providing help when people are at their lowest point, it is about transforming lives through education. It is about improving communities by addressing equity and justice issues, providing more green space, or cleaning up pollution. Our sector does so many amazing things – but raising money is just a tactic to make it happen, not the reason we do what we do. And that’s something important to remember at any time of year.
Sarah Willey LLC 