We All We Got. We All We Need.

How would you like to be a champion fundraising professional?

It’s simple. Not easy, but simple.

The Super Bowl LII Champion Philadelphia Eagles provide us with a great example of what it takes to be the best in any profession. While Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins — he’s also an entrepreneur and philanthropist — didn’t originate the sentiment, he articulated a statement that became a team slogan and nicely sums up the champion creed:

We all we got. We all we need.”

Let me explain.

To succeed, we need to recognize that all we truly can depend on is our team and ourselves. Furthermore, that’s often enough. More specifically, in the fundraising world, here’s what it means:

Build a strong team. Hire, or encourage your organization to hire, talented staff who believe passionately in the organization’s mission. Such people will almost always enjoy greater fundraising success than a hired mercenary who only wants a job and a paycheck. Remember, not only does your organization rely on the people it hires, so do you.

James Sinegal, Co-Founder of Costco says:

If you hire good people, give them good jobs, and pay them good wages, generally something good is going to happen.”

Enhance the team’s skills. Even talented, experienced people can enhance their skills. As professionals, we must never stop learning. We must always strive for improvement. This will make us more effective, and heighten our self-esteem. It will also keep us from getting bored.

Will Smith, an accomplished television and movie actor, continues to hone his craft and refuses to simply walk through his roles. As he says:

I’ve always considered myself to be just average talent, [but] what I have is a ridiculous insane obsessiveness for practice and preparation.”

Recognize you can only control what you can control. As an example, you could have angst about whether the new tax code will have a negative impact on philanthropy. Or, you could examine the new code to see how you can leverage it for greater fundraising success. In other words, you can choose to worry about something over which you have no control, or you can decide to take steps to adapt to the new fundraising environment.

Self-help author Brian Tracy puts it this way: