Imago in Potentia – The Next 100 Years of Generosity 💜

Four years ago, I founded what has become The Center for Sustainable Giving – built on a simple desire: to inspire generosity.

I've written often about the power of moments and the importance of marking milestones. So today, I want to do three things: celebrate this one, share why marking milestones matters, and cast a vision for the next 100 years of sustainable generosity.

Marking Milestones

One of my favorite books is The Power of Moments, by Dan and Chip Heath. The subtitle of the book is “Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact.”

Indeed.

One of the most powerful insights from The Power of Moments is in how our memories work. People tend to assume that our brains are like hard drives, dutifully recording and cataloging each experience we have. Our memory of those experiences then becomes the average of all the things that happen to us – good, bad, and neutral. 

The problem is that the brain is nothing like a hard drive. The brain is flexible and fluid, and we are far more likely to remember four specific types of experiences – peaks, pits, milestones, and transitions. These remarkable moments tend to stand out in our memories. 

Peaks are the highest of highs.

Pits are the lowest of lows.

Milestones are significant events or markers along the journey.

Transitions mark when one stage ends and another begins.

When I speak about the power of moments, I talk about growing sustainable giving as part of a compelling journey for potential and existing recurring donors. 

Specifically, I encourage leaders to identify these four core moments and to invest in each:

🏔️ ELEVATE the PEAKS – How can we take the best experiences and elevate them even higher? Make them more special and memorable?

🕳️ FLIP the PITS – How can we not only fill in the potholes, but flip them and turn them into peak moments?

❎ MARK the MILESTONES – How can we identify significant markers of progress and acknowledge them in a way that lasts?

🎉 CELEBRATE the TRANSITIONS – How can we acknowledge the moments when one stage ends and another begins?

💡 Takeaway: All elements of the journey are not created equal. To leverage the power of moments, focus on elevating peak moments, flipping pits, marking milestones, and celebrating transitions.

Why does marking milestones matter so much? Because milestones don't mark themselves. If we don't stop to name them, they pass by unnoticed. And they're one of the few experiences we're actually wired to remember – the rare moments that let us look back and see how far we've come.

So today, we're marking a major milestone for us, and I hope, increasingly, our sector – a milestone I've taken to calling our Imagoversary. 🎉💜🥳

💜 4 Years of inspiring generosity through The Center for Sustainable Giving.

💜 46 Organizations transformed to secure more funding through sustainable giving growth.

💜 25,000+ Leaders impacted with the message of sustainable giving.

💜 $43M+ in estimated new annual recurring revenue for the organizations we've served, fueling missions that are changing their worlds.

Celebrating this Imagoversary

In Latin, “imago” is a word rich with meaning. Literally translated as image, or the root of the word imagination, imago is a word picture of a future that will be, but does not yet exist.

For example, a butterfly is an imago – it’s the final form of something that is still becoming. 🦋

I believe that we are all on a journey of understanding who we were created to be – discovering our imago, as it were. 

Think about your own journey for a moment. What’s your imago? What’s that thing in the distance you are becoming? A friend said it to me this way this week – imagine your 80th birthday. Who’s there? What are you looking back and celebrating?

I hope my 80th birthday is filled with stories of inspired generosity. 

At The Center for Sustainable Giving, we exist to help leaders see a future that will be, but does not yet exist – their imago. We do this by helping organizations grow sustainable funding by inspiring generosity. 

Specifically, we have developed a process to deeply understand each organization's potential for growing recurring giving and translate it into a roadmap to help them build the stable funding they need to accomplish their mission in a more reliable, sustainable way. 

The Center for Sustainable Giving exists to equip leaders to grow generosity – within themselves, their organizations, and the communities they serve – fueling more sustainable and lasting impact. 

Sustainable Giving Manifesto

We are living in an important moment. Several trends have converged, making sustainable recurring giving more accessible to more charities than at any other time in history.

The question is, will leaders take advantage of this moment?

To that end, earlier this year we quietly published a short piece called the Sustainable Giving Manifesto. We have limited print copies (email me if you want one), but you can read the Sustainable Giving Manifesto in full here. 

The Manifesto is an 8-minute read, but I’ll share an excerpt here:

“You never change things by fighting against the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller

A manifesto is a public declaration of views and intentions. It’s a simple articulation of what one believes and a vision of the world that one wishes to create. 

The Sustainable Giving Manifesto is intended as a declaration of the future of sustainable giving. A recognition that sustainability in fundraising is a fundamental right that is available to all nonprofits.

No longer are the vast majority of charities left behind. This declaration both describes what is the reality today AND casts a vision for what will be in the future – an IMAGO for the new ERA of sustainable giving.

Excerpt from the Sustainable Giving Manifesto

100 Years of Inspiring Generosity

Spoiler alert – we don’t see growing recurring giving as the only dimension of inspiring sustainable giving. That’s why The Center isn’t called “The Center for Recurring Giving” (and not just because that doesn’t sound as good!). Back to the Manifesto:

Sustainable giving is not the destination.

It is one powerful expression of something larger.

Generosity is not merely transactional. It is formative. It shapes identity, community, and culture. And it shows up in far more ways than financial contributions alone.

Time.

Talent.

Trust.

Ties.

Testimony.

Wisdom.

Sustainable giving lives within a broader ecosystem of generosity. It is one of the most accessible and scalable ways organizations can invite people into ongoing participation – but it is not the only one.

To this end, we’ve been imagining the answer to this question:

“What would it look like to impact the next 100 years of sustainable generosity?”

Generosity that outlives us. That’s the question that has seized our imagination. 

I'm not sure any institution needs to last 100 years. I'm not even sure this one needs to outlast me – I wouldn't be so presumptuous. I wonder sometimes if we humans put too much stock in institutions.

But I am convinced the impact on generosity can last. That we can make a mark – inspire generosity, and do it globally. And if we imagine big enough, it can echo for a century or more, whether anyone ever knows the name The Center for Sustainable Giving, or Dave Raley.

Let’s conclude today with one final Latin lesson, if you’ll permit me.

IMAGO IN POTENTIA

At The Center, our motto is IMAGO IN POTENTIA. Translated literally:

IMAGO IN POTENTIA — "the image existing in potential, not yet in actuality"

This is the essence of The Center for Sustainable Giving. The essence of our imago – helping leaders see a future that will be, but does not yet exist. 

We are all imago in potentia. We are all in the process of becoming. You and I individually, our organizations, and our communities are all works in progress. 

IMAGO IN POTENTIA draws a distinction between the Latin for potentia and actus – potential and action – where potentia refers to something in the future that at present exists only as a seed waiting to be realized, while actus is the fully realized reality. 

Before anything can come into being, someone has to see the potential. But it can’t stop there. They must move from seeing to believing, and then finally, to action. That’s what we help leaders do. 

My hope today is that you reflect on your own imago. Your own journey. That would be the greatest gift of this Imagoversary. 💜

To that end, we’re gearing up to make an announcement next week. If you want to grow sustainable recurring giving for your organization, you won’t want to miss it. 

Until next week… Surf’s Up! 🌊

- Dave