Yes, Another Gratitude Article

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. ~ Melody Beattie

In the nonprofit sector, expressing appreciation aka saying “thank you,” is considered a “best practice.” 

As much as I resist the term “best practice,” particularly in a field with continuously evolving strategies and tactics, this is one that I have been pondering for years now.

 I have wondered, insert a Carrie Bradshaw-esque voice-over: “Is appreciation, or let’s say, writing 'thank you' notes and emails the same as gratitude?"

Or, is the act of thanking simply gratitude in motion?

I know, I know - some people will say, “who cares?”

Does it really matter? This is minutia.

This article isn’t for those people.

This is for people who want to understand the fullness of gratitude:

• How it has individual health benefits
• How it can bind teams together
• How it is a practice that can pay dividends

This is for those who connect with the idea that building a “culture of gratitude” can contribute to greater fundraising success. 

So is gratitude good medicine?

My gut response: of course! How could it not be?  

But I offer you proof.

Every year around Thanksgiving, “Today Show”- like segments and HuffPo articles pop up about the value of gratitude, how a daily "gratitude" practice, or writing a letter, or giving back can literally be good for your health.

Gratitude actually has been likened to “medicine” if you perform a google search – and – as my clients hustle around the holidays to send their top donors thank you cards, organize Turkey-day giving opportunities, and race to year-end closures, I often pause and think about what they are receiving in return.

Are my clients (or all fundraisers, for that matter) so mired in doing gratitude that they don’t have time be grateful? To feel it? To reap its rewards?

Just over a year ago, Greater Good Magazine published an article that uncovered the science behind gratitude and wellbeing. It featured Paul Mills, PhD, who spearheads research in this area at UC San Diego, and his journey to demonstrate that gratitude can in fact improve our health. In a study detailed here and countless videos and articles online, Dr. Mills asks, “Is having a grateful heart associated with a healthy heart? Can it show a decrease in depression, fatigue, and inflammation?"

Like this, another renowned professor of psychology at UC Davis, Robert A. Emmons, asserts, “The practice of gratitude can have dramatic and lasting effects in a person’s life.

“It can lower blood pressure, improve immune function and facilitate more efficient sleep, " he says. Gratitude reduces lifetime risk for depression, anxiety and substance abuse disorders, and is a key resiliency factor in the prevention of suicide.”

Emmons and Mills go on to show us how we can integrate a gratitude practice into our lives here, keeping a gratitude diary, writing a gratitude letter, and more.

After initiating a gratitude practice myself, one line every morning, I started to wonder: “If gratitude does make us healthier and happier, and helps us connect to a greater purpose, can it enhance performance?"

Can we do better if we feel better?

In a fundraising context, what if our health truly attracted wealth?

When I am speaking in public, I often ask my audience to “willingly suspend disbelief” – an approach I learned as a humanities graduate student.

I ask attendees to consider the possibility that we are empowered to shift the quality of our own health and that good health can translate into healthier teams, donor relationships, and communities.

I ask in sum for attendees to believe in the correlation between a healthy self, healthy work, and a healthy world.

Yes, that feels like a lot to ask.

And as I hear the “pst, peh, meh” from the cynics who are likely overworked, underpaid, or burnt out, I love up on them. I have been there.

This inquiry is in fact part of my own healing.

But here’s the thing, neuroscience is constantly showing we are wired for things like authenticity, creativity, curiosity and…gratitude.

Scientists, psychologists, and storytellers are continually showing us the neuroplasticity of our brains – our ability to shift narratives and shift our health and wellness.

So yes, if being grateful and doing gratitude is a prescription for health, what’s keeping us from embodying this as an institutional value?

As an INDUSTRY value?

In a recent workshop I facilitated on “the authentic ask,” I pushed my attendees to consider that giving is the most authentic, connective experience we can co-create with donors.

Now I am asking individuals and teams to believe that gratitude is the pathway to health and that health is literally a conduit to fundraising success.

(It's a lot, I KNOW, but bear with me).

Coincidentally, my work in fundraising has often been tied to health-related initiatives. I have participated in multi-million-dollar initiatives and billion-dollar campaigns determined to build healthier communities.

And I have simultaneously watched the health of my colleagues (and my own) go down the tubes.

So I ask, where is the gap here?

I wouldn’t go so far as to say WE were ungrateful and therefore lost our health along the way. 

That’s a total false equivalency.

I would however go so far as to say we often WORK in environments that DO gratitude well but do not create space to take in gratitude. To BE grateful. To receive it in its wholeness.

It’s simply NOT a cultural priority. It’s a functional priority. And therein lies the disconnect.

In my experience (and apparently countless quotes attributed to Matthew McConaughey, ha!) gratitude reciprocates. It’s cyclical. And reciprocal.

And what’s more, it can be knitted into purpose, vision and values for individuals and teams. It can be put into practice in meetings and in messaging. It can be leveraged to propagate health and wellness.

Look, of the many industries capable of upholding this notion that “gratitude is good for our health,” it’s ours.

Philanthropy.

Philanthropy truly has the power to nourish people and organizations.

–     to feed a mission and fuel our intrinsic humanity

 –    to set social change cycles and individual and collective healing in motion

 So why have we not made the connection?

Philanthropy is by my measure a distinct manifestation of gratitude and gratitude is good for our health. Gratitude therefore IS good medicine.

Another thought before I close -

Let's dig into the idea of “grateful patients” or “grateful families.”

In academic medicine, hospital fundraising, and social services even, “grateful patient programs" are essentially "on trend." The idea that this too is a "best practice" irks me on so many levels, but the most obvious reason centers on the name.

I have always felt like "grateful patient program" was a misnomer. That it reflected presumptuous thinking or what today I would argue is “outside-in” thinking rather than “inside-out.”

It presumes patients or families are going to be grateful for the care they or their loved one experienced.

It assumes they are warmer leads.

As a words person this nomenclature never quite worked for me. I would often ask my team, “how do we even know they are grateful?”

The reasoning feels so off, so arrogant, so ego-centric even, like a) we are certain about a position of gratitude and b) we know they will make a gift in return thereby emerging as a “grateful patient.”

To be frank: this has always felt weird. It still does. It feels jargony. And today, leading from the “inside-out,” I am calling on us all to change the narrative - to consider an essential reframe.

To me, the definition of a grateful patient program is one where we (individuals / organizations) are grateful that patients and families chose us to provide care.

They chose us! We serve them. Our gratitude may inspire theirs in return. The only alternative is to eliminate the attribute altogether.

Or as my colleague at a renowned hospital once said to, me: “Strike the name altogether – our grateful patient program is our giving program. Period.”

In fear of sounding reductionist here, I do confess, that targeting patients - in a different way than say an alum or a faculty member - involves differentiating tactics (words, approaches, appeals). In this case however, I believe "grateful patient programming" is an example of our industry conflating an internal strategy with an external name. Donors don't segment themselves. We do it!

Imagine a conversation between donors. Donor one, says, "Hey! So what donor-type are you? I am a "grateful patient." "Oh really," Donor two says, "I am a planned giver." "Cool." "Cool." They both say and part ways.

In all seriousness...what are the broader repercussions here?

Well, when we start using the word grateful or gratitude too loosely, it loses its intrinsic value, and more detrimentally, it can rub our donors and prospective donors the wrong way.

Here’s what I’d like to say in summary.

Gratitude has gotten trendy.

It has!

In yoga studios, on t-shirts and mugs. Instagram posts. #GivingTuesday even.

I am not going to hate on this.

So it goes, though, for me, I’d like to better address how we, fundraisers (working in a field that centers on giving and receiving) can better embody this notion for ourselves, on our teams, and with our charitable partners.

What does that look like? What does that mean, and what’s the payoff?

Everything I write about has “some” data behind it. That is to say, I am so "grateful" for the "science of gratitude." Still, I am trying to propagate a total paradigm shift that brings about change in the way we do, feel, think about, and embody our jobs as fundraisers.

I am trying to push our teams and organizations, our thought leaders even, to examine the intersection between health and wealth. To wake up to the impact a culture of gratitude can have in our daily work.

Some may argue, "We do! It's in our donor relations program." Another nod to the idea that we "do" it well. But where else is gratitude in all of this? Look...

It’s everywhere. It’s in your body. It’s in the lifeblood of your team, it’s in the heart of your donor, and it pulses through our world.

At the start of this essay, I asked essentially, if there was a difference between doing gratitude and being grateful.

I shared the evidence that it is in essence good for your health.

I showed you that teams can experience a culture of gratitude if we harness its meaning in a real, substantive, and authentic way!

Lastly, I argued, however implicitly, that gratitude is far more than “thankfulness” in action - it’s a way of being in the world.

It’s a mindset. It’s a point of connection. It’s what makes us human.

What if we believed:

 “Fundraisers facilitate gratitude – we create openings to give and receive in ways that transcend the gift itself.”

This is where I'd like to start.

Does this resonate with you?

To join the conversation about gratitude please comment or send me messages! To discuss ways to build a more comprehensive culture of gratitude, to operationalize it in team meetings, board meetings, individual sojourns, and with donors / stakeholders, email me at: [email protected]