How can fundraisers improve their outcomes by embracing the obvious?

The Fundraising Talent Podcast

Cathy is the development lead at Bloomberg Philanthropies. Bloomberg Philanthropies works to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people by focusing on five key areas: the arts, education, the environment, government innovation, and public health. Encompassing all of Mike Bloomberg’s giving, Bloomberg Philanthropies includes his foundation and corporate and personal philanthropy as well as Bloomberg Associates, a pro bono consultancy that works with mayors in cities around the world.

During our conversation today, Cathy encourages us to embrace the obvious and, as a mentor once told her, “be open to people who sees things that you don’t, but should.” Cathy wants to encourage us to approach things with a conversational, exploratory, “how could we make sense of this differently” attitude. She encourages us to stop looking for moonshots and begin to embrace the obvious - what’s in arms-reach, accessible, and available to us. To this point, Cathy concludes with an example from a friend at the Harlem Children’s Zone who, during the pandemic, came to a realization of just how obvious the solutions really were.

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