The Greatest (blog) of All Times: What fundraisers can learn from Muhammad Ali

A boxer might seem like an unlikely inspiration for a fundraiser, but the late, great Muhammad Ali was more than a boxer. Civil rights activist, conscientious objector and global icon; Ali was as famous for his battles outside the ring as inside, and his influence stretched far beyond the world of sport. I could write pages on what Ali means to me, but instead I’ll restrict it to what he taught me about fundraising.

Get yourself noticed

“I am the Greatest”

Ali turned boxing from an Anglo- American sport into a global one, and he did it by shouting from the rooftops and getting noticed. He talked non-stop, to the press, on Radio and on TV. When there was a newspaper strike before one of his fights in New York he took to the streets and coffee shops and promoted his fight face to face.

He was creative, writing poems, lecturing in universities, clowning round with pop-stars, and getting coverage that no other boxer had ever achieved.

Are you hoping to run the Greatest Fundraising Campaign of All Time? Then don’t be a wallflower. Don’t just talk to the people who already follow you, talk to those who’ve never heard of you, even talk to those who disagree with you. If you keep talking then eventually people will listen, and if you believe passionately in what you’re doing then even your detractors will start to respect your position, some of them might even become your supporters.

Be bold in your predictions...

“I say it again, and I said it before. Archie Moore will fall in round four.”

Wanting to make a small difference is noble, and key assessments of potential impact are pragmatic but not inspiring. But if you make bold predictions people will sit up and take notice. We’re generally drawn to confident people and we’re swayed by authoritative arguments, so tell everyone what your aiming for and don’t be shy about it. Stop thinking about what you’d like to do and what you hope to accomplish; start talking about what you’re going to do.  

But above all, remember

“It aint bragging if you can back it up”

If you’re gonna talk the talk then you have to walk the walk. Empty promises might get you noticed but they’ll come back to haunt you, so be bold, be confident, but always be honest.

...and they might come true

“I am the greatest; I said that even before I knew I was.”

Sometimes you need a positive affirmation to help you along the road, and Ali was no different. He told the world what he intended to do as if it were pre-destined, then he made it happen.

Ending poverty, defeating disease, defending human rights; these are goals that might seem outlandish to many, but if we keep repeating them we can make them happen, and we can drag the rest of the world along in our wake. Or as the man himself put it.

“If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it then I can achieve it.”

Never stop learning

“A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life”

 Ali developed his shtick after seeing a wrestler called Gorgeous George promoting a show, but he didn’t just copy his ideas, he built on them and made them his own. So if you see a great fundraising campaign that someone else is running then don’t be afraid to learn from it, but do make sure that you create something unique to your organisation.

His politics and beliefs evolved as the world around him changed and as he changed. And he learned from his mistakes both as a boxer and as a person. But he still remained himself and true to his beliefs.

Is that a contradiction? Not at all. If your core values remain the same but the world changes around you then why keep banging the same drum? Learn, adapt, embrace change and move forward.

Be brave: Stand up for your beliefs

In 1966, at the height of the Vietnam War, Ali refused to be drafted into the US military, saying

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”

That decision cost him his title, four years of his career, almost landed him in jail and made him probably the most hated man in (white) America. But it’s maybe the defining moment of his life, and one of the things for which he’s now most admired. 8 years later he won the title back and was probably the most loved man in the world, and even people who disagreed with his decision respected it.

So be bold, be true and say what you mean, not what you think the public wants to hear. People will respect your integrity even if they disagree with your message, and in the long run they’ll remember your honesty more than anything else.

Really Value Your Supporters

You could write a book on Ali’s relationship with his fans. He kissed babies and hugged old ladies like a politician running for office, he personally replied to thousands upon thousands of letters, played with kids in the street and visited schools, prisons and hospitals.

But what’s important is that he obviously loved those people. It wasn’t just a pose. By all accounts he took just as much interest in the man in the street as he did Presidents and celebrities, and lavished attention on people whether the press was watching or not.

He took every interaction with people as a chance to show them he loved them as much as they loved him. The lesson is pretty obvious.

Not every fundraising interaction will result in a donation, but it’s always an opportunity to show your supporters you love them. 

And if you love them, share your triumphs and your failures and allow them to feel a part of everything you do, then you can break down the barrier between you and your supporters.

Ali summed it up best so I’ll leave the last words to him. Whilst delivering a lecture at Harvard university in 1975 (imagine that for a second, a guy who barely graduated from high school delivering a lecture at Harvard!) he was asked for a poem. On the spot he came up with officially the shortest poem in the English language, but in two words he managed to say an awful lot, and summed up what we’re all trying to get across, what we would now call “identity fusion”.

“Me...We”