Fundraiser or "The Help?"

What to do when your expertise isn’t respected—and how to stop making it mean something about you.

📘 Episode Summary

What happens when you bring solid fundraising expertise—and someone with less experience dismisses it? In this episode, Erin explores a common but rarely discussed dynamic: being treated like “the help” instead of a strategic professional.

She shares a personal story about having her work overruled, the emotional spiral that followed, and the deeper pattern underneath it. You’ll learn how early messages about money and worth can shape your reactions at work, why certain comments sting more than others, and how to stop letting others’ opinions define your value.

If you’ve ever felt dismissed, underestimated, or sidelined as a fundraiser, this episode will show you how to reclaim your power and stop shrinking in the face of pushback.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Someone else’s inability to value your expertise says more about their patterns than your worth.
• Your worthiness is innate—not determined by which ideas leadership approves.
• The part that gets hurt is often the part that already believes a version of the painful story.
• Your idea is not you; separation creates freedom.
• Try on the energy of the fundraiser who knows they’re worthy—who bends but doesn’t break.

📝 Journal Prompt

How would you stand, speak, and decide if you deeply believed your worthiness wasn’t up for grabs?

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Transcript

Erin McQuade-Wright: 1:33

Welcome to the Brave and Balanced Fundraiser, the podcast I wish I'd had during my 15 years as a professional fundraiser. I'm your host, Erin McQuade Wright. This is your space to breathe, realign, and reconnect with a part of you that chose this work for a reason. Together we'll explore tools and practices that help you show up less stressed and spread thin and more grounded, brave, and on purpose. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started.

2:13

Welcome back to the Brave and Balanced Fundraiser. Identity is a really important thing, and we're going to dive into that today. How do other people see me in my professional role as a fundraiser, and how do I see myself? And that's not always a comfortable thing but we're gonna talk about it today. And I'm gonna share with you some of my experience and hopefully get you thinking about this, and I'd love to hear your feedback on this episode. You can join us in the Facebook group, the Brave and Balanced Fundraiser. Today we're exploring a listener suggested topic. When the fundraiser is treated like the help, I'd like to thank that listener for the idea. I think it's a good one. If you've ever felt like your expertise wasn't taken seriously or was given equal weight to someone who isn't a fundraiser at all, I see you, pal. This episode is for you. If you've got a topic you'd like to hear about on this podcast, let me know about it. In our exclusive Facebook group, the Brave and Balanced Fundraiser, the group is a place for you to be seen, heard, and supported, because the work you do is important and you are important too. So the dynamic we're exploring today is this. You know what needs to be done to solve a particular problem or create a campaign. For example, you make a recommendation, you create a plan, and then you hit a wall. Someone who doesn't have your expertise, maybe the executive director or the board development chair thinks it should be done differently and your plan falls flat. Does this sound familiar to you? If so, what's your go-to reaction when this happens? Do you get angry? Do you deflate like a balloon and sulk out of the room? Do you push back? Do you get louder to drown out the other opinion? And here's another question. What does this go-to reaction that you have cost you over time? So I have a story about this that happened many years ago. I came into an organization and was heading up the fundraising and they had a very plug and play annual. Campaign. It wasn't like now when people are doing handstands and flips over themselves to get that annual fund dollar, it was at a different time when those dollars were pretty much guaranteed and the letter could say pretty much anything, and it was one letter that went out and people gave. I think it might have raised$40,000 or something like that every year. It wasn't a small amount of money, but there wasn't any creativity in the appeal, and it struck me as a little bit lazy. So I knew that fundraising appeal language was a science. I knew that this had been studied by people perfected. Tested. I think I went to the nonprofit storytelling conference, uh, around this time and I learned about the eye movement studies that would follow where someone opening an appeal letter would look. You know, first they would see if their name was spelled correctly. And then the second thing they did wasn't to read the first paragraph. No. The second thing they did was to go to the end and see if it was signed in ink. I was fascinated by this, and I wanted to bring some of this science into our fundraising appeal and see if we could make it better. I hired a consultant who had a really great track record in writing annual appeal letters, and they created a really warm and engaging letter. I was really happy with it, and then I showed it to my boss. And my boss said, uh, no. Our donors are more sophisticated than the average fundraising letter recipient. So I get why this language that this expert put in might have worked for other people, but not for our donors. Our donors are sophisticated and so they need, they expect to be written to with sophisticated language. And I felt just deflated. I felt like my expertise was not accepted. Like the expertise of this expert that I had hired was not accepted, and I felt like my energy just leaked right on out of me. I felt like a, deflated balloon, and that really cost me. That was my go-to reaction, to just go in like a balloon, look what I made and then get popped and be like, and sort of just slide out of there. And more long term, term that go-to pattern that I was choosing, of putting all my hopes in what someone thought of me and then getting deflated when they didn't agree with me. Over time, that lessened my desire to take a risk. I shrank and I felt myself become the SU and teenager who maybe not on the outside, but on the inside, had her arms crossed and was slumped back in the seat. Like what? What do you want now? And if you didn't already know this, that's not a great energy to take into any job and be successful. No, for all of us. I mean, even if it's sitting across from your spouse, if you are in that sulin teenager mode, if your body is in that position. You are not likely to do well in that conversation, it's not gonna go well for you. So that was really what that pattern was costing me. So there are two things that are happening in that story, and I wanna separate them out for you. One is their disregard of my expertise. And two is what I made that mean about myself. So if someone tries to insult me by saying something I don't believe, like my hair is way too short, that insult bounces right off of me. I mean, my hair is long enough that I have to get up out of the chair to have it cut, right? So it's, you know, it's not long, but it's past my shoulders. That's. Not short hair. So if someone tried to insult me by telling me my hair was short, it'd be like, uh, that's kind of weird. But if somebody says something that a little part of me already believes, like I'm not enough of an expert to be treated like one oof, that really hurts. And so that little part of me believed I'm not enough of an expert to be treated like one. And when my expertise was not taken in the terms of that annual fundraising letter, that's why it hurt. It was the meaning I made about that myself The part that hurts is the part that already believes a little bit of that. So someone can disregard my expertise. I can't control another adult's thoughts or their actions, but I get to determine what to make that mean about me because my emotions are my responsibility. And I didn't always see it that way. I used to believe, if you don't take my expertise and I get mad, then you are responsible for my feelings. You made me mad that math used to kind of math in my head. I was like, yeah, that sounds right. They made me mad. But when I learned to take responsibility for my emotions, it really shifted everything for me because I found that rather than giving my power away to someone else, to determine how I felt, that I was able to decide for myself how I wanted to feel and how deeply someone else's words got to take up real estate in my head. So here's an idea I'd like you to try on. Are you ready for this one? It's a big one. Your worthiness is not determined by whether your boss thinks your ideas are good. Your worthiness isn't connected to whether your idea for the fundraising event or the letter, or the appeal or the campaign is the one the organization adopts. That's not where your worthiness comes from. Your worthiness is innate. It is inside of you, and it can't be snatched away by others. In fact, the only way that others can get ahold of your worthiness is if you give it away in the hopes of being liked or appreciated or accepted. Like, here have this power to crush me. And that's what I used to do because I didn't know any better at the time. So here's a question. I had like you to try this on, like you would try on a really fine coat or a hat. The question is, how would you stand if you knew deep down that your worthiness wasn't up for grabs and really how would you walk? How would you talk if you knew deeply that you are worthy of respect, regardless of the circumstances happening around you. If you knew you were worthy and someone in power didn't follow your expertise, would it crush you? Or would it not have to mean anything about you as a person? They just didn't take your idea. Your idea is not you. Those are separate things. Maybe it would bounce off of you, like someone telling you that your mid-length hair was short. My invitation to you is today as an experiment, embody the fundraiser, who knows they're worthy, who is able to bend and not break. The one who can offer a suggestion without brittleness. Who can take feedback without embodying that sulking teenager. Just for today, try on the fundraiser who is worthy like you would try on a beautiful hat or just a gorgeous coat, and let me know in the Facebook group how you did with this experiment. I wanna hear it. You can just search for the brave and balanced fundraiser. And join the group, and then once you're in, let me know how you did. Thanks for being here. Before we wrap up today, I wanna anchor a few key takeaways from this conversation so you have them close. Because these patterns show up for so many fundraisers and they do not have to keep running the show. Number one, your expertise is real and someone else's inability or unwillingness to receive it says more about their patterns than it does about your value. You can't control their reaction, but you absolutely get to choose what you make it mean about you. Number two, your worthiness is not up for negotiation. It doesn't rise when your ideas are accepted or fall when they aren't. It's innate, it's internal, and it's not something that anyone else gets to hold hostage. Number three, the part of you that gets activated or deflated is often the part that already believes a little bit of the painful story. When you notice that, just notice it. It's feedback that maybe something is coming up to be healed for you. This is a pattern that you're noticing, and when you notice it, then you can do something about it. It's not a personality failing on your part. Number four, your idea is not you. When leadership doesn't follow your recommendation, it doesn't have to crush you. It can bounce off of you like somebody telling you your hair is short when it clearly isn't. Number five. Today's experiment is to try on the energy of the fundraiser who knows they are worthy, who bends but doesn't break, and who shows up with clarity instead of acting like a sulking teenager on the inside, see what shifts when you stand, speak, and decide from the energy of that fundraiser who knows they're worthy. And I'd love to hear how that experiment goes for you. Come share your wins, your wobbles, your questions In our Facebook community, the Brave and Balanced fundraiser, it's where fundraisers like you get to be seen, supported, and reminded that you're not doing this work alone. Thanks for being here with me today and for the work you do. It matters and you matter. I'll see you next time.