Show Notes
Scarcity-driven fundraising tactics-chasing, over-following up, pushing too soon-might be quietly sabotaging your donor relationships. In this episode, Maryanne Dersch shows you how to shift from pressure to flow.
Key Takeaways:
Scarcity in fundraising often begins as a nervous system response to uncertainty—like being behind goal or a donor going quiet—and can drive behaviors such as chasing, over-following up, and pitching too soon, which donors experience as pressure.
Maryanne’s Donor Flow Framework (Awareness → Interest → Connection → Action) emphasizes moving people at their natural pace; scarcity wants to “skip ahead” to the ask, while flow means meeting donors exactly where they are and offering the next natural invitation.
Shifting from pushing to curiosity, pitching to connecting, and chasing to inviting creates conditions where donors lean in rather than pull back, because they feel understood, sovereign, and not treated like ATMs.
Sustainable fundraising grows from confidence, connection, and influence—trusting the value of your work, understanding what matters to donors, and creating conditions for movement—supported by intentional mindset practices like mantras about time and money that keep you out of scarcity loops.
"Not responding is a response."
"Scarcity tries to manufacture movement. Influence creates the conditions for movement, and that is my whole life's work in that sentence: creating conditions for movement."
"Sustainable fundraising doesn't come from pushing harder. It comes from creating the conditions in which donors naturally want to move closer."
- Maryanne Dersch
Reference:
Scarcity Donor Flow - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F1Q-Lbp1BQ5bklAsNqAf92zScepjBBOF/view?usp=sharing
Ask for and receive all you want, need, and deserve without feeling rejected, ineffective, or pushy. Learn to manage your mindset, lead yourself and others more effectively, and have the meaningful conversations that drive your most important work.
More from The Influential Nonprofit
When a donor goes quiet, should you follow up—or let go? This episode explores how to tell the difference between trust, control, and avoidance, and how to act without trying to control someone else’s choice.
Burnout isn’t a badge of effective leadership—and rest doesn’t have to mean stepping away for weeks. This conversation explores practical ways to delegate, challenge assumptions, and help teams navigate change with greater care.
Why do people say yes or pull away even when the choice seems logical? Explore how trust, safety, autonomy, and the freedom to say no shape meaningful decisions.
Running a nonprofit can be lonely, and your board of directors may never think about your growth as a leader. In this episode, Allison Wyatt explains how to build a personal "circle of champions," so you always have someone to call when things get hard.
At 60, Maryanne discovered her hair had been naturally wavy all along — she'd just never created the conditions for it to show. In this solo episode, she turns that surprise into a fundraising lesson: your next donor, partner, and big idea are probably already in your orbit, waiting to be activated.