These three lines encapsulate the mindset of abundance that is one of Benefactor Group’s core values. It’s an approach that we cultivate internally and that we strive to share with clients.  

An abundance mindset helps you recognize the inherent possibilities of your organization, your colleagues, and your donors—instead of focusing on what you don’t have. It’s an empowering and motivating starting point for any objective. With an abundance mindset, you assume you will reach your goal and start identifying the steps needed to get there—instead of being held back by the belief that you will never have the things you want. 

Many of us with experience in the nonprofit sector have unconsciously adopted a mindset of scarcity. There’s never enough funding, or enough time. If another organization gets a grant, it means our group is left out. We go cap in hand to donors and ask them to give us just enough to get by this month. 

Being abundant means reframing all these situations and anxieties to envision a situation in which there are enough resources to go around. It means focusing on what you have and what’s going well. It means assuming that donors and supporters are as excited about your cause as you are, and they want to help you soar, not limp along. 

We are confident that our clients, our colleagues, and our firm can succeed.  

This abundance mindset is not “just” a positive attitude. It’s not optimism bias—the tendency to overestimate the probability of positive outcomes—nor is it magical thinking. An abundant approach accounts for challenges, acknowledges negatives, and highlights the capacity and potential to change, improve, or increase.  

Possibility is our starting point whenever we meet a new client, start a new project, or take on a new responsibility. This expectation of potential is part of Benefactor Group’s DNA, and we apply it in all sorts of circumstances.  

Take a donation reply card, for example. When we provide communications counsel, we encourage clients to assume that donors want to be generous—not that they want to get away with giving as little as possible. An abundant donation reply card lists potential gift amounts from largest to smallest—ideally, the largest gift amount is based on data about the donor cohort’s typical giving. And for the blank option, often labeled “other,” we suggest a more motivating tag: “Delight us” or “Maximize your impact.” 

We build on what is strong.  

To uncover the existing strengths of an organization, community, or team, we use an approach called appreciative inquiry. In contrast to problem solving, which focuses on what’s not working, appreciative inquiry asks three foundational questions to help define the desired end-state: When has the organization been at its best? Why is this example so meaningful, and what does it say about our values? What does the ideal future look like? 

Appreciative inquiry, originally developed at Case Western University, is based on the idea that organizations move in the direction of what they study. Identifying what is working and how to foster more of the same is more productive—and more motivating—than focusing on problems. Negatives must be addressed, but we treat errors not as failures, but as triggers to improve systems. As one of my colleagues likes to remind us, “A defect is a treasure.”  

Here’s an example. During a capacity building assessment, we may find that a client is spending time and money on an event that provides a limited return on investment. A non-abundant approach would be to devote our energy to critiquing the event and listing its deficits. A more abundant direction is to focus on what else the client could do with the resources currently devoted to the event.  

There is always a path forward.  

The abundance mindset concept was popularized by Stephen R. Covey, who described the character trait of “abundance mentality” in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s a frame of mind that “constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions.” This driving impetus to pursue possibility is baked in to our approach with clients. It is sometimes the case that a campaign feasibility study tells us a client is not ready for a campaign—but the data we collect forms the basis of a plan to build up what’s necessary to launch a successful campaign. 

An abundance mindset reminds us to celebrate what is working, to affirm the importance and impact of a client’s cause, and to use every tool and best practice we have to map out the steps to the goal.  

Cultivating an abundance mindset. 

At Benefactor Group, the abundance mindset underpins our commitment to the common good, our collective commitment to care for one another and for the world we share. An abundance mindset and appreciative inquiry are complementary hopeful and positive techniques that anyone can integrate—personally or with a team. Make the choice to see obstacles as opportunities. If someone on your team is focused on what’s going wrong, try a gentle prompt to identify things that are going right. Offer words of appreciation—remember the Gottman ratio, which tells us that healthy relationships need five positive interactions for each negative one! 

We’d love to hear if you’ve incorporated the abundance mindset in your own work. Let’s talk.