Donor engagement and the retail-ification of equity and justice

Hi everyone, buckle up (though, at this point in the rapid collapse of civilization, I’m not sure any of us can be more buckled than we already are). Whenever I talk about donors, people get weirdly defensive and all up in their feelings, like a mama bear when someone threatens her cubs. If that’s you, please grab some fair-trade chocolate, a cup of matcha, or whatever else that soothes you before continuing.

I grew up in Vietnam and often go back to visit. One of my favorite places is Saigon’s Bến Thành market, a giant mostly indoor market with about 1500 vendors. I took my kids there one day this summer so they could be immersed in the experience, and they were quickly overwhelmed by people shouting at and beckoning to us to buy souvenirs, dried fish, fruit, clothes, toys, hot food, and electronics. With so much competition all around, who could blame these hardworking vendors for clamoring for customers’ attention and dollars.

In a way, this giant market was a great visual metaphor for what our sector has somehow evolved into. Over past several decades our fundraising philosophies, practices, and pedagogy (how we teach fundraising), have led to a “retailification” of our sector and thus of equity and justice.

By that, I mean we have entrenched the capitalistic notion that every nonprofit is like a retail shop selling specific causes, goals, and even emotions, and donors and funders are their customers. This retailification manifests in several ways, including:

• The constant striving to ensure donors have excellent “customer service” through personalized touches such as thank-you notes and calls, invitations to special events (usually involving wine), and so on.
• The pervasive environment of competitiveness. Here it seems even worse than in retail, as nonprofits are not just competing with those with similar missions, but with organizations with completely different missions and even geographic locations.
• The use of marketing tactics like pulling on heartstrings, donor walls, and linking dollars donated to direct impact, such as “$100 dollars provides ten kids with lunches for a week.”
• The assumption that donors’ preferences and passions, just like retail customers’, are great and valid, regardless of the “seller’s” opinions
• The belief that money in the possession of donors and funders is “their money” and they get to do whatever they want with it, and that nonprofits should be thankful for getting any amount.
• The notion that a donor is a customer, and “the customer is always right,” and therefore should always be treated with courtesy and respect.

This retailification has been so pervasive that most of us don’t stop to think about it. Last week, I talked to some colleagues who are consultants, who mentioned helping a client whose nonprofit works to raise awareness of a very rare disease. These are savvy, experienced consultants, so I have no doubt that they will figure out how to help this organization “sell” this cause and make it stand out among thousands of others in the vast marketplace of causes

But we need to stop and examine what the consequences have been and whether we want to continue operating this way. Treating donors and funders like “customers” leads to all sorts of harmful things, including putting up with people and institutions with money even when they’re racist, misogynistic, transphobic, or otherwise awful. It leads also to nonprofits being compelled to respect donors’ and funders’ whims and passions regardless of whether they make sense, are currently needed in the world, or could even possibly be destructive to people and communities.

The poverty tourism and white saviorism we often decry can be attributed partly to this retailification effect as nonprofits continue to sell emotions like heroism and even existential significance. And the belief that it’s “their money” means we don’t ask these “customers” to examine the inequitable means through which much of their wealth has been built.

A colleague recently texted me “Have you ever been treated so badly by a donor that you told them to keep their money?” I sent my sympathy. Donors can be great, and some of them are assholes. But why wouldn’t they be, if we believe and condition them to believe they’re customers who are always right and who should be able to do whatever they want and nonprofits should always be grateful?

As problems in our world worsen and nonprofits endure increasing attacks from a fascist administration that just declared war on any organizations criticizing fascist ideas and actions, nonprofits need to have a completely different relationship with their donors and funders, one not based on customer/retailer dynamics. Instead of our sector being like a giant market and nonprofits acting as individual stalls trying to entice “customers” with sweet words and special offers to peruse their wares, hiring consultants to help us with better marketing strategies, and so on, we need to move towards more of an urgent and communal framing.

I vaguely recall in my childhood waking up one night to see a distant neighbor’s house ablaze. Villagers frantically tried to help put out the fires. I was too young to do anything useful, so I did what I was told and went back to sleep.

As I’ve mentioned before, that’s more the reality we’re dealing with now, and we should act like it. All of us—nonprofits leaders, donors, funders, volunteers, clients—are like people living together in a village that is half on fire and rapidly spreading. In this situation, a retail-like mentality would be silly, if not downright destructive.

Imagine groups of people forming into firefighting units and competing with one another for the attention of those who have water and buckets. Some donors get upset because some groups had terrible “customer service” and didn’t write them personal thank-you notes but only sent form letters as acknowledgement for their donation of water and buckets. Foundations with tons of water in reserve decide to only give out 5% of their water to help put out the fires, and they force the firefighters to fill out long, tedious applications to “sell” to the foundations the importance of putting out the fires so they can get some of that water.

We must unlearn or at the very least temporarily pause many of the retail-like philosophies and practices we’ve embedded into our work. With democracy, truth, and decency rapidly burning down, with nonprofits and the people we serve and anyone believing in equity and justice being considered enemies of the State, there should no longer be distinctions between who is a customer and who’s a vendor; everyone must do their part to help put out the fires before the whole world turns to ashes.

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Vu’s new book will be coming out on October 14th, 2025. Pre-order your copies at Elliott Bay Book Company, Barnes and Nobles, Bookshop, or Amazon. If you’re in the UK, use this version of Bookshop. If you plan to order several copies, use Porchlight for significant bulk rates.

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