Ep. 148: The 7-Minute Rule: For Fundraisers Who Hate Failing
EPISODE 148
The 7-Minute Rule: For Fundraisers Who Hate Failing
About the Episode:
Ever pour your heart into a campaign, emails sent, donors hyped, and an event planned, only to hit a wall? Donations stall, goals aren’t met, and suddenly, it feels like you failed. This episode is your permission slip to pause, reflect, and bounce back stronger. In part two of the mindset series, I’m sharing a concept I coach clients on weekly: The 7-Minute Rule. It's the strategy that helps nonprofit leaders recover from fundraising flops without spiraling into shame or burnout. Because the real issue isn’t that you missed the mark—it’s that no one taught you how to process the disappointment and evaluate what’s next. If you’ve ever walked away from a fundraiser thinking, “What’s the point?”—this one’s for you.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
What is the 7-Minute Rule—and how it saves your campaigns (and sanity)
Why post-campaign silence kills momentum and what to do instead
How to evaluate a campaign without making it personal
What emotional agility has to do with sustainable fundraising
The importance of celebrating wins—even when you don’t hit your goal
The mindset shift that separates stalled nonprofits from seven-figure growth
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here! https://christinaedwards.krtra.com/t/xKuLs6tOiPZa
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“The 7-minute rule is a mindset structure, a method that helps you recover faster and build emotional resilience as a fundraiser.”
“Emotional agility is the ability to feel hard things without becoming them.”
“When we are hyper-focused in striving mode, we miss it.”
“What you appreciate, appreciates.” Lynne Twist
“Clarity only comes through reflection, not rejection reaction.”
Episode Resources:
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
Connect with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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Christina Edwards 0:20Welcome to part two of this series. So last week, we talked all about the seven second rule, and that concept is all about how to handle the small micro moments, the small areas of being ghosted or being rejected in your fundraising journey. This episode is we're going to zoom out and we're going to talk about campaigns. So this might be your big event, your spring match, your year end fundraiser, your Giving Day campaign, your annual event, right? These could be the ones where you really are, like Christina, I'm spending a lot of time, a lot of people power, a lot of energy, a lot of everything is being poured into this, we're going to talk about today what to do when your campaign falls flat, and how the seven minute rule is going to move You from frustration to evaluation and ultimately to impact.
so most fundraisers, most CEOs, most marketers, feel like if their campaign flops, it was because they failed. They make it very, very personal. They did something wrong. They think maybe we chose the wrong goal, the wrong message, the wrong name. Donors don't care, right? It's sort of a big problem, and it's all to do with you. But the problem actually isn't the result. The problem is how you handle the result and what to do next. So if you don't have a structure for that post campaign crash, you spiral, you may shut down, you may disappear and go quiet on your donors for three months, nine months longer. I've met with organizations who have done exactly this. They actually hit a crash where it's like it all felt very hard, and then they go very, very quietly. So this actually is, again, a normal response. It makes sense when something doesn't go how you hoped, it is a disappointment. And in fact, it's bigger than a disappointment. It feels like, gosh, I spent all this time, all this energy. I got everybody hyped, I got myself hyped, and here we are. We didn't even hit our goal. We didn't even hit our goal. And the way that I came up with this concept was it's so funny how much I've learned in Little League. It is wild. So we're gonna give you two examples. One is, I think I heard this on a podcast. I don't know if I read it or heard on a podcast, but basically I heard this coach say, and I don't even know what type of sport they were coaching, so it could be volleyball, it could be baseball, whatever, but these were high schoolers, and it really stuck with me, and if they lost the big game, the big game, what the coach would do is, here's what happened. The high schoolers would like, pile back on the bus to head back home, and morale would be like, lowest of the lowest of the low. Everyone would just be in spiral city. There might be tears, there might be negative talk, there might be blaming, there might be I knew we could never win. All of the feels right. And this coach said, You've got seven minutes to sulk. You've got seven minutes to say we should have done better, to cry, to vent, to feel like crap, to blame, to shame, and when that timer goes off, we are done. When that timer goes off, we're going to evaluate, we're going to find something to celebrate, and we will move forward. And that stuck with me, because I have watched many a nine year old this season go up to bat, and the stakes can feel high. And even at nine years old, they can feel really high, like the pressure is on you, and you go up to bat and you strike out, and that strikeout could be the Game loss. Strikeout you with me, and I've watched the self talk that some of these kids have, and it's not their fault. Again, we learned last episode, we are hardwired to go specific, very specifically negative. And that self talk will be, I lost the game. It's all my fault. It's all on me. I know I'm the worst. I'm the worst at this, right? And it will be like this, piling on, right? And what I talk to both my children about is they're. A fork in the road when that happens. And number one, you do want to acknowledge that part of you. So that's we're going to talk about that in a second. The other fork in the road is like, how you want to continue to talk to yourself in a way that actually keeps you progressing at the game or keeps you stalled out in that loop. And like, one is going to produce joy and love for the game, and one's going to keep you in it, and one's actually going to make you better at it. And the other, we see people quit. We See people do something they don't even enjoy anymore, right? We see that that energy kind of dwindle, okay? And in fundraising, it's the same way we need that if you're going to grow your organization, you're going to need to live through a lot of these seven minute moments, these moments where you're like, You're kidding me. I knew we would sell out tickets and we didn't. Or I was so sure we'd hit that 100k goal and we didn't, or I thought that donor was going to come through and they didn't. Those moments are going to happen. And when you get to be a $5 million organization, those moments are still there. The zeros get bigger. I look at my clients who are on their way to raise their first 200k and then I look at my clients who are closing in around 2 million. And the disappointment is in both. Both of them have these moments. And the trick here the ones that peter out, the ones that quit, the ones that leave the industry, the ones that let their nonprofits shutter are the ones that get stuck in that loop, and they make it mean something about them. They make it mean something about the people who support them. And the ones that grow to 2 million, 3 million and beyond, are the ones that go, ah, part of the deal, part of the deal. Not personal, not not about me and my worth. Where can I move the needle? Where can I evaluate so the real problem isn't the miss. The real problem isn't that you should have sold one more table to your Gala, or that you are 5k away from your your goal, right? The real issue is you don't know how to recover. And that's a killer of nonprofits, that is a killer of momentum, that is a stress cycle, right? Most people either wallow too long there, and this is an even bigger one, and then they just move on to the next campaign, and they skip the evaluation part. They skip it, and that kills momentum more than the actual no or the shortfall ever could Okay, so we're going to talk about the seven minute rule. We're going to talk about some ways that this shows up and some ways that you can actually introduce this in your next campaign.
So the seven minute rule is a mindset structure, a method that helps you recover faster and build emotional resilience as a fundraiser. Now I have a workout example popping in my head, which is like, you're not supposed to, like, have arm day every day of the week, right? You're supposed to have like, arm day, leg day, and then you're supposed to rest and recover. And what a lot of fundraisers do is like, arm day is the 24/7 campaign until you burn out, right? No, you're supposed to evaluate, you're supposed to pause, you're supposed to feel the disappointment. You're supposed to feel the joy too, by the way, the celebration. So after a loss is after you experience, like a loss, an underwhelming result. I want you to literally set a timer. I'm holding up my phone, and I want you to set up a timer for seven minutes, and I want you to journal. I know I want you to journal. And what you can do, if you're like a kind of a non journal, or like me, you can actually use your phone, and you can use the voice to text, and you can put it in the memo area of your notes app or something like that, but you need to get the words out of your brain. That's that's what you need to do, okay? And I want you to write down in those seven minutes, I want you to just keep asking yourself about that moment, about what's coming up. Maybe you didn't hit your fundraising goal. You raised half than you expected. A key donor backed out. You got a bunch of maybe next time, now's not the right time replies. I want you to write down all your thoughts about it. I want you to vent. I want you to just let it all out. And your thoughts could be about the campaign, about the people, about the donors. It could be about any aspect. I want you to feel the feeling and write down that feeling. Maybe that feeling is rejection, maybe that feeling is like disempowerment, or that feeling is like, I should have known better, right? Write down the feeling. And if you don't know how you're feeling, you can always google like emotions. Google emotions on a chart, it will give you lots of different examples, and you're like, oh, that's how I'm feeling deflated, right? And so you're going to go through that, you're going to feel it. You want to write it out. And the temptation may be to avoid this exercise altogether, or to just stay. There and you believe it, like it's true, like it's fact. Christina, I didn't hit my goal. I was $5,000 away from the finish line, ergo, total fail. And that is not true, and that thought is keeping your organization so stuck. Okay, so instead, the seven minute rule says you're going to feel it, and then you're going to move just like that. Coach said, I will let it all out, vent, have at it, pile it on. But after that, we are going to evaluate. One, we are going to celebrate something. Two, and we are going to reset. Okay, those are your steps, evaluate, celebrate something reset, because if you can't find that evaluation, how will you ever get better, right? How will you ever get better if you can't celebrate something that went well, it's kind of like you're telling the donors, the $15,000 worth of donors that got you your 15k they don't matter. They weren't enough. But a terrible message to put out into the universe. So you need to celebrate the 15,000 worth, a dollar's worth of donations that came in, even if you were $5,000 away from your goal. You feel me. And then you want to reset. And that's why we have a container of time, the seven minute rule container, because after the seven minutes, your brain is going to want to keep piling on. It'll be the next day. It'll be the day after, and your brain's gonna be like, Yeah, didn't go well, you see your friend at the grocery store. They're like, Oh my gosh, I saw your campaign. You've been rocking it. You're like, didn't hit our goal. No. Redirect. Redirect. You're the boss. You're kind of driving, you're driving this. You're driving the bus here.
So why is this not just Woo? Why is this actually science backed? Why does this work? Okay, let's talk about emotional agility. Emotional agility is the ability to feel hard things without becoming them. And it's really, really important that you actually have that emotional agility that you were able to hear the nose. This is some work with from Dr Susan David, okay, and she talks about this of that emotional agility is so important that you're able to hear it, feel the range of emotions, and that that range doesn't stop you, that range doesn't have you retreat, okay? And naming and timing those emotions creates psychological safety. So you're my you're honoring the emotion without drowning it out, or what I think a lot of people do, especially my dudes, I think you all put your feelings on a shelf, and that shelf is dusty and it's in the back of the closet, and you never, ever go see it. You're like, that sucked, right? I think women do this too, but in general, we tend to talk out how we're feeling right. And so this is so important. So you want to just event. You want to talk it out. And when the timer goes off, I want you to ask yourself some more questions. Where did we get traction? What was outside of my control? What feedback did we get? Maybe direct or indirect, what would be something I would try differently next time? This is literally how you get better. This is it. This is it. Then celebrate something, anything. Who surprised you, what new donor showed up, who gave you a shout out that you were like, Oh my gosh, that filled my heart. Who showed up early on the day of the event to set up, who stayed late to break down, and you don't have to ask them what board member really rocked it.
For example, when you're evaluating this data, here's what you will show its head. Here's what will like poke out you would have missed. For example, we only raised 3k instead of 10k but our new donor rate was 42% think about that. Let's say you only raised 3k your goal was 10k and had you not went in there and looked around and evaluated you would have missed how many new donors you got through this campaign? How many new donors? So we have a client inside the sprint method, and my sprint method is my more foundational program. We teach you community fundraiser so you get out of solo fundraising mode. Okay, this is perfect for emerging nonprofits. And I was coaching her on a recent call, and it really stuck with me. I, like, had to it, like, really dropped in as I was, like marinating on it in the days that passed, which is she ran her first sprint campaign, she didn't hit her goal of 10k and one of the things she said was, and she led with, is, I didn't hit my goal, and she led with heaviness, right? And that makes sense. I am not no shade on that, right? But after some coaching, what she also told me is, we made more in this campaign than we ever have in the history of our nonprofit. And I was like, I'm on the floor, like, I'm just I felt like, all right, where's the confetti? Where's the balloons, where's the party? Can we just pause and sellbrate that you just said, in this short period of time, you fundraise more than you ever have for your nonprofit in the history of your nonprofit. And can we just put on the back burner for a second that you and you didn't hit your goal? It starts to here's what it starts to mean. Who cares you didn't hit your goal. You doubled what you did last year. You brought in new donors. Who cares? When we are hyper focused on the the shiny thing, the big thing, it's not that goals are bad, it's not that goals are bad, but when we are hyper focused in striving mode, we miss it. We miss it. And I know this happens with my clubbers too. Is they're very goal focused. They are very, very in growth mode. And I want them to be right. I want them to be and it can be hard to actually see what you've created and how abundant it is and how much traction you're getting when you're like, Yeah, but yeah, but we're still so far away, yeah, but we didn't hit it, yeah, but it feels blah, blah, blah. And Lynn twist says this, and I probably think about this a few times a week, and I'm so glad I know this quote from her, because it really is a guiding force for me. What you appreciate appreciates. So Oh, my God, if you would like to have more people give, you have to appreciate the givers. Now, I think of another client. Her goal was to have 100 new recurring donors. She didn't make that goal. She made 60% of it, holy crap, 60 new givers. That's amazing. Those are record breaking results. She had never brought in that many people in such a short amount of time, right? Or you can just be like, I didn't hit my goal, right? I didn't hit my goal. One thought is going to keep you retreating, going, I'm not doing that. A campaign again that feels like a slog, that feels really hard. The other will be like, I got 60 new donors. Oh, my God. I wonder what campaign I should run and what messaging, and in what time frame to pick up those extra 40 it's as good as done, because I'm going to love on the people already here. I'm going to create a practice of loving on them. Because what I appreciate appreciates like that is so so important in this that is so important for satisfaction in what you do, for your donors to feel that reciprocity and not that transactional relationship, right? And for you to experience the growth,
and there is a confidence I've noticed that comes from organizations who are past a million in annual fundraising revenue, there is a confidence that comes because they've mastered or are closer to mastering, I feel like it's never really totally mastered. It's never totally perfect, this seven minute strategy so they know and feel confident that if they didn't hit their goals, it was just a miss. And it doesn't mean they won't make it up next month. It doesn't mean they won't find a way to pick up the phone, make a call, get some traction. It's just an evaluation piece. It's not a piece that is a personal attack on them or their organization or their mission.
and if you're thinking, but what if I actually did mess up? What should? What if it was a total fail? What if it was a dumpster fire that's still data, that's still worth going through this, this evaluation process, that's still worth going through the seven minutes where you get to boohoo, and then we go, and then we move on to the next layer of this work, right? Versus walking around saying, but it really was a mess up. It really was terrible. That thought will keep you in the mess, up in the swirl, in the swarm, versus where's the data here? Where can I get better because of it? Where do I need to ask some people for help? Why didn't I ask people until the last week? Oh, maybe I should have asked people earlier, or everybody said they would help, but then they didn't help. What can I do? What can I inject during the campaign to add more support and more engagement, right? Suddenly you get into this, this mode of leadership when you go through this process. But you can't actually go through this process until you felt the feels. So what if it's not fixable? What if you're like, it's done, dusted over, I can't fix it. Okay? You could actually do this mid campaign. You could take a day where you're like, I'm kind of seeing some trends I don't like. I want you to evaluate mid campaign. You've got to go, Okay, is there a pivot here? Is there something we need to layer on? Is there urgency we need to to that we haven't had, that we need to layer on in our messaging? But. Clarity only comes through reflection, not that rejection, reaction, right? Not that pushing away, not that inward. I'm so bad, I'm terrible at this. So I have personally had campaigns do this. I've watched many nonprofits campaigns do this, and every time, the difference between that shame and guilt versus growth has been the seven minute space, I think so often about kids who loved a sport, they loved a sport, and then they gave it all up somewhere around the tween or teen years. And I think there's a lot of this built in. They made the loss so heavy. They made the loss so personal. They made it mean something really negative about them, about their identity. Versus, huh, have a skill to build over here. Versus, like, I think about like, the kid who's up at bat and he strikes out, and then that's the game loss. Is that the Game loss? Or was the loss a series of strikeouts, a series of outfield catches that weren't made it. You know, it was built on a series of just small adjustments, small micro adjustments that could have got the win. It's never, ever all on you, unless you make it, unless you tell yourself it's all on you. So this is the work we do. This is why we layer on the strategy. That's why this fundraising strategy is so important, and so is the mindset, and I believe this evaluation piece is somewhere in the middle. I had a client recently who joined the club, and they had already had a campaign in motion when they joined, and their campaign didn't go how they wanted it to. They did not hit their goal, they did not follow our framework, because their campaign again was already going by the time they joined, and it was really easy for them. I could feel it to go spick and span. That didn't work. Now what? And I was like, no, no, hang on. Let's evaluate. Let's evaluate. Let's poke, poke around, because there are some juicy pieces in there that we actually can learn from. And oftentimes there's an opportunity. It's like, oh, where can we pull a thread here for a campaign to actually hit the goal? You know, I like to think it's not over till it's over, and even when it's over, I'm not over. I'm not done, and I don't want your organization to be done either.
Don't let that feeling reverberate out into your world, your staffers, your volunteers, your board members, they are looking to you as the calm, confident, sturdy leader to be like, we got this. Here's what we're going to do differently, and that momentum will have that lean and energy, and they're going to be like, All right, I'm all in. So if you want support with this, I would love to help you. If you're feeling stuck hosting spaghetti dinners and chasing casual donors, relying on Facebook birthday fundraisers, for it's time for community fundraising inside the sprint method my program for emerging nonprofits, you'll learn how to repeatable system to raise 10k or more in every fundraiser. No big team, no grant writer, no burnout.
you can go to splendid atl.com, forward slash, start for details now if,
now if you're ready for your fundraising MBA, with a twist, maybe you're a little rule breaker like me. You're ready to ditch the grants, the galas, the grassroots campaigns, then the purpose and profit club coaching program is for you. It's where bold nonprofit leaders double their campaign revenue. You can go to splendid ATL, forward slash start for details. I'll see you next time go. Use the seven second rule and the seven minute rule. I'm excited you.