The world of fundraising today is crowded. Very, very crowded. More crowded than ever before. Today’s donor is simply overwhelmed. She feels as if she’s being bombarded by all the good causes out there.

There are more charities and more causes asking more often in more different ways than ever before. The charitable marketplace is a noisy, busy place where everyone feels jostled and bumped and pushed.

Think of it. There are about 82,000 registered charities in Canada today – and that number grows every year. Add to that the 80,000 charities and causes that aren’t registered – and you’ve got one helluva crowd.

How in the world is the poor donor supposed to keep track?

And not only are there a lot of charities asking today – they’re asking in a lot of different ways: direct mail, product sales, dinners and golf tournaments, pledge-a-thons, lotteries and bingos, car washes, e-mail appeals, calling you at suppertime, infomercials on TV, newspaper ads, billboards, door to door canvass, stopping you on the street ...

(Above, Fraser Green; below, Tony Myers)

There’s an old story about two lumberjacks, Larry and Luke, who are cutting trees in the forest.

They are each expected to cut 100 trees per day. As noon approaches one day, they’ve each only cut down 30 trees.

Larry turns to Luke and grumbles :"Looks as though we’ll be working through lunch hour again.”

As the noon whistle blows, Luke picks up his saw and starts walking back toward the camp. “Where are you going?” Larry asks.

“To sharpen my saw,” Luke replies.

In his bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey talks about the importance of keeping a sharp saw. He argues that making time to improve your skills is critical – especially if you’re already overwhelmed with work.

Or as Fraser tells the lesson as an anecdote: The summer after Grade 9, a new kid moved to my home town of Renfrew, Ontario. His name was Jack McCullough, from Belfast, Northern Ireland and he became my best friend that summer.

Jack’s sport was soccer, mine was football. When we first started playing, Jack would always yell at me to “stop chasing the ball” and to “run to the open space”. That advice made no sense to me. I thought that if I chased the ball I might get possession of it.

But he explained his strategy to me. If I ran to the most open space available, he’d get the ball and pass it to me. Then, when the pack started coming after me, he’d head for the goal. I’d either shoot myself or pass the ball back to him and he’d score.

It worked. It worked over and over and over.

If you watch little kids play soccer – or hockey for that matter – you see a swarm chasing the ball or the puck. Yet, if you watch older and better players, you’d notice much better positional play.

I believe that many of us “do fundraising” the way little kids play soccer. We all chase the same ball the same way at the same time.

We believe that research is the tool that will give you a sharper fundraising saw. Research will help you better understand who your donors and prospects are, why they give, how they prefer to give and how you can keep them giving.

In the articles that follow, we’ll give you a sound understanding of why and how research can become an essential element of your fundraising toolkit.

Stay tuned.