Folly #124: Name Calling

Names that no longer serve us.

I have a problem. It’s my name.

Not Melanie Hamburger. Having survived childhood name games, it’s a great name as an adult! Once people catch their breath from laughing about Hamburger, they can spell, pronounce and remember it. (I love it when people laugh at my name. It’s human to laugh. And it’s a funny name.)

Fond playground memories, with thanks to Ben White on Unsplash for the wonderful image of a boy laughing his head off. Probably at another child’s name.

No, my problem is my business name. Community Grantwriters sounded great five years ago when we were doing all fundraising for small nonprofits, including a lot of grants research and writing. But we don’t do that anymore. (For reasons the Follies make clear!) Now I tell nonprofits to spend their time activating their boards and connecting with individual donors instead.

Back then, we were also promoting careers in fundraising, and offering paid grantwriting internships to support skill-building. I humbly learned that workforce development is complex, and requires a lot of expertise beyond my wheelhouse.

But I’m still stuck with the name. And I’m wondering:

What would be a better name for our work with small-staffed nonprofits, when our focus is building fundraising ease for board members and growing donors, not grants? (So far, ActivateDonors and GrowDonors — .us or .com — are on my short list.)

And is it worth the hassle to change our name? Feedback appreciated.

Nonprofits Outgrowing a Name

I realize how many nonprofits face similar challenges in what to call themselves. Nonprofits are like startups – they tackle big, difficult problems. If they do it well, there is a lot of learning in the process.

Consider the wonderful, community-created public health clinic where I was so fortunate to work as development director: Marin City Health and Wellness Center. In service of their mission of African American health equity, they expanded to another community with a similar history of Black families moving west for WWII shipbuilding jobs in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point. It won’t surprise you that folks in San Francisco may not see themselves getting healthcare from a clinic named for another town.

Or Is It Fear of Outgrowing Your Name?

So there’s that. Your model evolves and you find your nonprofit services no longer fit the name you’ve been called. And we all get attached to our names.

Is this also what gets in the way of nonprofit collaboration?

What if our donors don’t see themselves in your name?

Or worse. Our donors become your donors.

Last year I got to work with an innovative partnership where four affordable housing organizations began fundraising together. The West Marin Housing Collaborative has been hugely successful – together they have raised significantly more than any of them did separately, and their impact has increased exponentially in terms of more awareness (and units) of affordable housing. Two of the nonprofits were named for their small towns, and the third was associated with an adjacent area. There was a lot of discussion about what donors would think and do.

Would donors in one small rural town invest in the larger region?

Or would the whole idea alienate donors from supporting any of it?

Perhaps some donors are put off by the idea of their local nonprofit joining a regional consortium. But many liked the idea. And they stepped up to support it. Generously.

If 65% of our nearly 1.6M nonprofits in this country have annual budgets less than $50,000, I’d say that formalizing partnerships to build revenue and impact makes a lot of sense. Even if it includes re-thinking a name.

(Don’t even get me going on nonprofit acronyms, which good fundraisers and marketers would suggest you avoid – especially in communications to donors. How ironic that professional fundraiser networks are known as AFP and DER.)

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How are you feeling about your name?