(Today’s post is from Elizabeth Husserl, our money expert.)

As fund raisers we can often feel the awkwardness that comes with asking for money.

We know that our donors want to support our causes and are willing to put their checkbook forward when we do our yearly appeals. Yet, even knowing that we are channeling money to something worthwhile does not make the awkwardness go away.

What would money say? “Don’t be afraid to ask for me”. The more clarity you have on what you need, the more you can accurately communicate that to the world around you and the more you can relax into knowing that there is enough.

In the work I do with individuals and groups, the scariest moment often comes when I ask people to look at their money flow- how exactly does money flow into and out of their lives? This feels terrifying at first because it means looking, it means knowing, and it means facing up to any discrepancies that arise.

But when we go through the exercise and put the numbers down on paper we see that the numbers really just want to talk- they tell us what we need to make our projects and lives a reality. They give us a cornerstone on which to base our plans.

By looking at numbers and doing the “budgets” (or what I prefer to call conscious spending plans) we can then take a deeper step into our projects, our organizations and our lives. We can move beyond the fogginess of “not knowing” into a place of clarity and empowerment where asking becomes more of a spiritual practice of communicating to life that you do know what you need in life.

The question then becomes- how can the flow of abundance provide? (The trick here is then to let abundance flow to you without being attached to what that looks like.)

Ask money to come to you. Look at the dialogue you are currently having with it. Don’t be afraid to invite more into your life- you are big enough to hold it.

Happy Monday!
- Elizabeth

The problem is, only for the rarest person is asking for a gift easy. For most of us, the discomfort is so strong we’ll invent 100 excuses to procrastinate.

Despite any training, despite any inspirational send-off, asking will always be the biggest challenge.

What can temper the fear to some degree is keeping in mind that prospects, who are usually more sensitive than we expect, respond favorably to solicitors who are dedicated and genuinely enthusiastic about the causes they represent.”

- from Guidestar’s: 20 Biggest Fundraising Mistakes

(Happy Monday!

As fundraisers, money comes with the territory. We are constantly asking for it, receiving it and hopefully finding enough of it to support our good causes.

We all have a unique money personality. And the people who fund our causes have them too.

Why is it important that we know our money personalities and the money personalities of our donors?

Because our money personality determines our relationship with money, how we ask for it and how we give it away.

For example, we might have a donor who has an “Innocent” archetype or personality, they may really want to give but feel overwhelmed at the steps of following through. Will it be a complicated process? Will it mean jeopardizing their own sense of financial safety and security? The “Innocent” values safety at all cost.

A “Tyrant” archetype likes to hoard. They often have a lot of money and are great prospects for giving, but have trouble letting the money go. Their growing edge is to open the hand that holds and to connect to the deeper needs that are asking to be healed, which can often happen by contributing to causes they believe in. Both of these archetypes may have a similar difficulty in allowing their money to flow, yet require different strategies.

Knowing your own money personality will help you recognize those in others. Feel free to email me at ehusserl@hotmail.com if you would like more in depth information on various money types and how to work with them. You can also read Money Magic by Deborah Price.

For now I leave you with 5 money personality insights to illuminate your day:

1. You are not your money personality, but your money personalities work through you. If you are too anxious to look at your “money matters” or in this case your money personality, out of anxiety, paralysis or fear that it determines who you are, financial “fuzziness” will never be lifted. Don’t be fooled- you are not your money personality- your different money personalities speak through you to give you important information on how to best manage your money life.

2. Your money personality doesn’t disappear because you don’t look at. If we don’t pay attention to our money personalities they will act out in louder and more extreme ways. Money personalities continue to exist regardless of how conscious or unconscious we are to them. Like finally deciding to face your bills, if you square your shoulders at your money personalit(ies) you actually may be surprised at what’s in store.

3. Your money personality has an important message for you. For example the “Innocent” personality desperately needs more information and a financial team of support. The message here is “you do not have to do it alone.” All of the personalities have something important to say. The sooner you pay attention, the quicker your money personality will work with you instead of against you.

4. Different personalities require different strategies. We do not fit into one box. We are all too different and unique to be molded into one. Our money personalities are the same. Get to know the different personalities that you inherited or acquired along the way and understand your unique take to money. Avoid the headache of doing it blindly.

5. No matter how much work you do to better manage your money, if you don’t look at your money personality, it will rule your financial life! Like a partner or spouse who absolutely hates being ignored, so do these different parts of us. No one likes not being seen and we act out of line until we get the attention we deserve. So next time your money anxiety is knocking on the door, stop, TAKE A DEEP BREATH, put the bill down (momentarily), and ask that voice or feeling, “Who are you? What do you want? What are you trying to say?”

Like any relationship, it is conscious conversation, compassion, and love that creates lasting change.

– Sam Butler, The Way of All Flesh

As the memories of our recent Thanksgiving gatherings linger behind us, I find it a perfect time to reflect on the flip side of the “act of giving thanks” which is “knowing how to receive.”

In our holiday season we usually get the opportunity to practice the art of giving and to experience its abundant benefits – giving promotes a sense of inner and outer generosity, a sense of peace and well being, and is an act of selflessness which benefits those around you.

Yet, just as important is the act of receiving. Receiving opens our hearts, it allows us to feel loved and plants essential seeds of feeling supported and held within our community and circle of friends. Without receiving there is no channel in which to give, and the cycle of abundance and flow is broken.

As Bernard Lietaer would describe in his Yin/Yang economy, polarities such as giving and receiving inherently exist within the other, and can not flourish if there is the absence of one.

This holiday season allow yourself time to reflect on how well you know how to “receive.” Oftentimes receiving can make us uncomfortable. We become the center of attention, we may have childhood defense mechanisms that block the entry of this particular energy flow, or we want to receive love and acceptance so dearly that we are not really sure how.

Use the practices of receiving in your organization to help guide you on how to receive in your daily life. (Sometimes it is easier to receive when it is for someone else!) Some of these may include:

• Know how to let “resources” come in. Reflect on how you feel when when a grant or donation comes in. Your heart may get warm and a smile may come to your face. Take the time to let both the monetary resources and emotional resources come in. This deepens our felt sense experience of being supported and sustained by those around us.

• Allow the energy you received to flow and be expressed through you. Try to find your unique way of giving thanks in return. It may be through a card or something different this year such as a picture, a collage or a drawing. The more you allow the embodiment of your act of receiving to be an expression of “you”, the more the act of receiving nourishes you from within.

• Allow there to be times where you just receive. Just as important as the suggestion above, allow times in your life when you receive, where you do not have to give anything back immediately, but you can rest, relax and “be” in the state of receiving. Here you can explore what you like about receiving, what may make you uncomfortable about it and what effects it has for you.

The more you intentionally know yourself in the act of receiving the more you can truly know abundance, from within.

Happy Holidays!

- Bernard Lietaer

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As a fundraiser have you ever felt perplexed by the complexities of economics and money?

Or been boggled by the intricacy of dealing with people who have enough money to sustain a fulfilling lifestyle, but never quite seem fulfilled?

I have…and for the last ten years I have been birthing a perspective that I have come to call Inner Economics to counteract the definition of economics that I was taught in high school which was “economics is the allocation of scarce resources.”

This was a definition that only gave way to a mentality of scarcity. Yet I inherently knew that there was indeed enough to go around.

All aspects of life (including fundraising) contain cycles of birth and death, recession and development, depression and growth. I knew that if all these life cycles were integrated into a healthier vision of economics and money, we would one day experience sustainability from within.

Inner Economics is a process of becoming aware of how economics and your relationship to money play out in your life. It is a new envisioning of Economics that finds its roots in the old – reclaiming the essence of the word “Economics” by going back to its Greek root: oikos-nomos (oiko + nemein) which really means”management of the household.”

If we can learn better how to manage our inner resources, we can better inhabit our inner home. We can embody a knowing of sustainability or a knowing of abundance that keeps us centered in our core. This is true stability.

In the following months my desire is to help you all connect to a healthier relationship to sustainability, to money and in essence to abundance. To really know abundance means not just “knowing” what abundance is in our mind, but to actually feel it and embody it in our hearts, bodies and souls. This requires trust. And we need to “touch” to trust.

So I will invite all of you to take one first step in “touching” abundance by answering the following question and digging deep:

• What sustains you in life? Really….what gives you sustenance, what makes you feel most alive?
Write out a list of your answers, letting it be different from a list of what you are grateful for.

Don’t be afraid if you don’t quite know. That is a natural step in peeling back a layer. Staying in the unknown is a skill and it is sometimes better to just ask the question than to know the answer.

Trust that by opening a process of knowing yourself you open a door to knowing abundance. The more you embody this, the more abundance and sustainability will come from within. And that my friends, is a radical revolution!

Happy questioning! And please feel free to comment on this experience or email me at ehusserl (at) innereconomics (dot) com. May your courage and questions inspire all of us!

Warmly,
Elizabeth