Download “Online Fundraising” book chapter from “Excellence in Fundraising”
Blitzkrieg in German. Lightning War in English. And no, this is not an article about war. But I’m going to use the analogy, which is a difficult one to make in the charitable sector, but hear me out.
War is a grand yet tragic exercise in human history. Yet, out of the insanity and futility of war there is genius (albeit misguided) in creating new ways of doing things.
You’ve probably heard of the word blitzkrieg. The word is attached to an integrated approach to warfare created by the German Army prior to the Second World War and was executed with frightening success at the start of the Second World War. It was a new model that closely connected tanks, soldiers, airplanes, artillery and other methods of warfare. In the past, cavalry, archers, knights, pikemen, etc would be used side by side but separate.
It is with thanks to electronic technology, the radio specially, that integration was possible. While every German unit (soldiers, tanks, airplanes, etc.) had radios to coordinate activities, the opposing side often used flags to wave to one another on the field of battle. No wonder things went so well for the Germans at the beginning of the war.
Looking at today, I’m pretty confident to argue that our digital environment is the equivalent to the radio in blitzkrieg. It is connecting the world just as the radio connected the troops.
But that digital ‘radio’ for nonprofits needs the same things the German Army needed to be truly integrated—training, preparation, strategy. Nonprofits need to take the digital environment and train staff to use the tools in a multi-channel, integrated fundraising environment. After all, what good is a radio if no one knows how to use it? And what’s more, you need an integrated plan to execute the strategy.
To get a better sense of the challenges, results, and possibilities of integrated fundraising, I urge you to download a copy of a chapter I wrote recently for a new book. And when you read through it, think about the role of digital technology as the glue that can hold a truly integrated fundraising program together.