Building Companionate Love
In our previous work we have drawn a distinction between companionate and compassionate love. The latter is the love we experience for “others”, apart from us, that we see are suffering. Companionate love, by contrast, is the love that we experience for family, friends or those who are otherwise close to us. In companionate love, we walk alongside a loved one, sharing a little of life’s journey together. Companionate love is important because of its deep links to wellbeing, but also because donors experience a sense of temperature with it, specifically a feeling of warmth.
There are many uses for companionate love in fundraising. Donors sometimes want to walk alongside the community they care about and even to use their philanthropy to become a part of it, (albeit, sometimes, symbolically). But the impetus can also come from the nonprofit. Often, our mission requires that we blur the distinction between “other” and “us”, building a bond instead that allows the focal community to become part of who we truly are. This transition can obviously be a goal in and of itself, but it can also resonate with fundraising because in this scenario when we give we are no longer giving money away. Rather, we give to uplift part of who we are. Practically, that opens up a much bigger pot of resources.
So companionate love is important, but how do we use it in fundraising? Asking the right questions is key. We begin with the following:
1. Who Should the Love Be Between?
This may sound rather an obvious question, but it is more complicated than it sounds. Certainly the focal love may be between the supporter and you – the nonprofit. But as a donor I might covet the love of others like me who are passionate about the environment, saving animals from extinction or finding a cure for breast cancer. And, of course, in the faith-based context, it may be my love for a God figure that is at issue.
Of course I may also be giving because of a love for those served by the cause; i.e. those that we used to term our beneficiaries. In this case my love for the nonprofit may be secondary, it is the love of some community that delivers for me the most heightened sense of well-being.
It sounds obvious as I write, but nonprofits can easily take a wrong turn, assuming the love is focused on them, when the organization is merely a conduit for donors to get close to those they really care about and experience love for. In time we may come to love an organization because of this care, but such love is nonetheless secondary and must be separately nurtured.
Ultimately a donor survey may be the best way to clarify what should be the focus of love and for whom.
2. Why is the Love Meaningful?
Often love will be meaningful because of who I am and thus the collection of identities that comprise my core. It is easier to experience love, when the focus of my love seems familiar to me in ways that I value. It is also easier to experience love, when the focus of that love shares a common interest, experience or goal.
They may be a cancer survivor, a bereaved parent, a child abuse survivor, a loving daughter or a moral person. When I see the similarity, it is easier it is for me to walk alongside them and to experience a heightened sense of upliftment and well-being when I do so.
Yet identifying who the focus for love should be, only takes the fundraiser so far, they must also understand why this relationship is meaningful and how the meaning it supplies can be celebrated and nurtured. Giving experiences that lack meaning are quickly dropped. And it’s important to note that this is a different “why” to the “why” in “why people give.” Ask me why I support Cancer Research UK and I might say that I give to help find a cure for cancer. But dig a little deeper and it may be my identity as a loving son that is expressed through the desire to walk with others on their cancer journey supporting them in the best way I can. This may be soaked in meaning for me as I continue to cope with the untimely passing of a loved one.
3. How should it feel?
What kinds of emotions are (or could be) associated with the focal form of love? In companionate love, one could certainly experience warmth, but there are a plethora of others. Emotion can be experienced when I imagine myself in the focal loving relationship, but it can also accrue by virtue of the challenges this person or community that are close to me, face. I feel it more intensely precisely because they are close to me. The narrative arc in our storytelling can be felt more keenly by those in an already heightened sense of arousal. Selecting the right emotions and being positive whenever one can, will all be important.
4. What Can It Take On?
From a fundraising perspective, how will this love be channelled? What purpose will the deepening of the love serve? Will it fuel a transformation? Frequently this will be a transformation in the circumstances faced by the parties to the love relationship. But the lives of beneficiaries can also be transformed creating feelings of well-being for all. Less obviously, love can be transformational for the donor as they morph into who the community invites them to become.
It is important to note that the outcomes created by love are not necessarily the same outcomes as those provided by money, so fundraisers need to broaden their thinking and help people move along the journey in love alongside the journey in giving.
5. How can we deepen it?
Our recent research tells us that donors find it easier to experience companionate love when they:
1. See more of their self as a person in who they are as a supporter. Thus being a supporter of X or Y organization is at the core of their identity.
2. Articulate their self or supporter identity with a higher degree of positive sentiment.
3. View themselves as similar to other supporters or beneficiaries (i.e. potential partners in the loving relationship.
4. Experience a greater sense of connectedness with the focus of their love.
It is important to recognize that the language we use in all our fundraising communications can shape each of these factors and increase love as a consequence.
For some, the deepening of loving relationships may be a goal in and of itself. For others, love may be of interest as a mechanism through which philanthropy may be nurtured and developed.
Whatever one’s perspective, love is at the core of philanthropy and it is certainly worthy of our attention.
For more information, see The Love Report: Volume 2, available to download from our Reports section.