Most of the time, we want to be right. We want to be effective too, but the urge to be right often overpowers our willingness to make the better decision. At the end of the day, this is driven by fear. We fear that going against our gut, the sense we expect to confirm what we already believe, will make us feel like a fool for once again doubting ourselves, and that it will haunt us forever.
At least, that’s true for me. My memory is filled with times I went against my gut and paid the price when I was wrong. But somehow, I can barely remember the times I went with my gut and it proved completely wrong, or the times I made a decision against my intuition and it proved correct.
This is the mind playing tricks on us, using shortcuts that evolved to help us survive. It’s why the wilderness novice chooses to run when approached by a grizzly bear: running is quicker than calculating the likelihood of an attack. Of course, it’s the wrong choice, because running can trigger the bear’s own instinct to chase.
In fundraising, I see these mental shortcuts play out regularly, and they hold back organizational growth and impact:
Confirmation bias urges us to seek out, interpret, and favor information that supports what we already believe. If we believe we aren’t getting funded because of our branding, we’ll find information that supports this belief and call a rebrand the solution to our fundraising problem.
Base rate neglect leads us to believe there are no individual donors out there to fund our work. It ignores the fact that 74% of all charitable dollars last year were given by individuals, including bequests (Giving USA 2026).
Self-serving bias encourages us to credit the grants and donations we secure to our own insight. It also leads us to blame failed proposals and donation requests on outside factors, like the foundation board or a prospective donor’s knowledge gaps.
Consider an executive director who assumes she’s on track by talking to an individual donor the same way she would a foundation program officer. She couldn’t be more wrong. She tells herself, “This is what works to raise money,” because it’s the success she remembers. When her results with individual donors are low, she sees it as a problem with the donors. Either she is unaware that individuals and foundations differ in many ways, or she ignores the facts because going with her instinct feels safer.
She’s the novice in the woods, and the right response depends on what’s in front of her. Running from an approaching grizzly bear is the wrong move. Running from an approaching alligator is the right one. But how is one to know the difference if they’ve never seen someone outrun an alligator, or get eaten by one?
To be effective nonprofit leaders and fundraisers, we have to avoid these traps. That requires us to wake up to truths that run counter to our deepest instincts. It also requires us to develop a higher level of awareness by learning from experienced people and established research, which together provide a strong and consistent basis for what works in fundraising. Access to that information is no longer a barrier. The biggest hurdle is moving past instinctual leadership that centers the ego, toward leadership that centers humility and learning.
Choosing to be effective over right isn’t easy, and it can push us out of our comfort zone. The impactful leaders I’ve worked with, in fundraising and in social justice more broadly, never disconnect from their gut instincts; they just know their limitations. They balance their proven expertise with the weight of what they don’t know and haven’t seen.
This shift doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, and it lives in our day-to-day choices. To start, we can accept that what’s worked well for us in the past may not work well under different circumstances. We can seek the knowledge and wisdom of our peers in the field to help us check our biases at the door. And we can write down how we came to our decisions, before the reasoning gets lost and we’re left relying on a memory tilted in our favor. Over time, these habits will lead us to a more expansive leadership approach and more effective fundraising.
Check out “A traditional Inuit game of balance and strength, stylishly captured” to see the short film All-around Junior Male, by the Inuk filmmaker Lindsay McIntyre at Aeon.co.
LMCC Manhattan Arts Grants - $1,000-$20,000 grants for Manhattan-based artists, collectives, and nonprofits across all disciplines through four tracks: project funding, arts education, and general operating support - November 12, 2026.
VIA Art Fund Artistic Production Grant - $25,000 to $100,000 grants for U.S.-based artists creating newly commissioned visual art in public spaces and non-traditional exhibition environments. LOI required - November 5, 2026.
Aegon Transamerica Foundation Grant - Grants for nonprofits in 10 U.S. cities supporting arts, community development, education, health, and financial empowerment - November 1, 2026.
JD Finish Line Foundation – Safe Communities Grant - Grants up to $10,000 for U.S. nonprofits serving majority-BIPOC communities focused on public safety, criminal justice reform, community-police trust, and facility improvements - October 15, 2026.
The Shubert Foundation - General operating support grants from $15,000 to $371,000 for U.S. nonprofit dance companies, arts-related organizations, and university graduate drama departments - October 14, 2026.
Zellerbach Family Foundation Community Arts Program - $5,000, $10,000, or $15,000 grants for Bay Area individual artists and nonprofit arts organizations with budgets under $2 million working in dance, music, theater, literary arts, or visual arts - October 13, 2026.
Leadership Fellows at The Trust - rolling deadline
Harvard Health Coverage Fellowship - rolling deadline
Seeding Disruption Fellowship - rolling deadline
Craft Archive Fellowship - For researchers, scholars, and artists conducting research on history of underrepresented craft artists - rolling deadline
Women inPower Fellowship - For women who are 3-5 years away from C-suite positions or women based in NYC (separate cohorts) - November 2026.
Michigan Central Art x Newlab Creative Residency - $30,000 unrestricted award plus 12-week residency in Detroit for U.S.-based individual artists (25+) at the intersection of art, technology, health, and society - October 30, 2026.
Creative Catalyst Fellowship - Fellowship for AAPI artists creating work around this year’s theme of “Belonging,” focusing on civic participation and community engagement across the country - October 15, 2026.
Djerassi Resident Artists Program - Fully funded one-month residencies in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains for emerging artists across choreography, literature, music, visual arts, media arts, and science - October 9, 2026.