WHEN GOOD INTENTIONS DRIFT

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Charities rarely lose their way all at once.
They drift.

Not because they stop caring.
Not because they forget who they serve.
But because survival quietly begins asking louder questions than purpose.

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Every charity begins with a desire: to reduce suffering, restore dignity, or expand possibility for people who need it most. That desire is the engine. But almost immediately, another engine enters the system: fundraising.

 

Money is not the problem.
Measurement is not the problem.
Donors are not the problem.

 

The problem begins when survival depends on certainty, while impact lives inside uncertainty.

 

Every charity lives inside a tension: to serve beneficiaries and to survive.

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This tension is rarely spoken aloud, yet it shapes nearly every decision. Fundraising cycles, reporting requirements, renewal deadlines, and board expectations create invisible pressure to perform stability even when reality is uncertain.

Charities are evaluated continuously, often by people far removed from the lived experience of beneficiaries. Under these conditions, uncertainty becomes dangerous. Learning retreats. Performance takes its place.

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Mission drift does not begin when values change.
It begins when pressure goes unnamed.

 

The Anchor

 

Desire gets you in motion.
The journey sorts out the way.
The destination shows up when it’s ready.

 

This is not a motivational quote.
It is a way of governing uncertainty.

 

It recognises three truths:

• action begins before certainty,

• direction emerges through engagement with reality,

• outcomes cannot be scheduled on demand.

 

The pages that follow explore what happens
when charities forget this.

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I AM A CHARITY, THEREFORE I FUNDRAISE

 

This is not a statement of fact.
It is a belief loop.

At some point, charities quietly absorb a shortcut in their identity:

To exist is to fundraise.

Not to serve.
Not to learn.
Not to reduce harm.

But to fundraise.

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Once this equation settles in, everything else rearranges itself around it.

“I am a charity” stops being a description.

It becomes a justification.

And justification quickly turns into obligation.

 

If I am a charity,
then I must fundraise.
If I must fundraise,
then I must be legible.
If I must be legible,
then I must promise outcomes.
If I must promise outcomes,
then uncertainty becomes dangerous.

This is not strategy.
This is identity collapsing into function.

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The Silent Shift

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Originally:

We fundraise so that we can do the work.

Quietly becomes:

We do the work so that we can fundraise.

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The organisation does not notice the reversal.
It feels the same from the inside.

But the centre of gravity has moved.

Beneficiaries are no longer the reference point.
Fundability is.

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Why This Is So Hard to Question

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Because the statement sounds responsible.

“I am a charity. Therefore I fundraise.”
Feels like realism.
Feels like maturity.
Feels like governance.

Questioning it can sound naïve, even reckless.

And yet this sentence does more damage than most bad decisions —
because it locks identity to survival mechanics.

 

Once identity is tied to fundraising, failure is no longer informational.
It is existential.

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When existence depends on fundraising:

• learning must be hidden,

• doubt must be managed,

• complexity must be simplified,

• truth must be timed.

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Not because anyone is dishonest —
but because being feels at stake.

This is how performance theatre begins.

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Reversing the Sequence

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What if the sequence were reversed?

I am a charity. Therefore I learn.
I learn. Therefore I adapt.
I adapt. Therefore I serve better.
I fundraise to support that — not to justify it.

This does not remove the need to fundraise.
It removes fundraising from the role of identity anchor.

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Charities do not fail because they fundraise.

They fail when they forget that fundraising is a means, not a proof of existence.

Failing on purpose begins by breaking false equations.
Especially the ones that sound obvious.

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BALANCING STAKEHOLDER EXPECTATIONS

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Once a charity is in motion, it enters a crowded terrain:

• donors want accountability,

• boards want reassurance,

• regulators want clarity,

• beneficiaries want dignity,

• staff want safety and meaning.

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These expectations are often mutually incompatible.

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Trying to satisfy all of them upfront forces organisations into performance mode:

• fixed theories of change,

• simplified narratives,

• premature certainty.

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But the quote reminds us: the way cannot be fully designed in advance.

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Social change is not a railway line.
It is wayfinding.

In practice, this means:

• adapting programmes as reality pushes back,

• revising assumptions when people behave differently than expected,

• making trade-offs visible instead of hiding them.

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A charity that treats the journey as something to be managed away will drift.
A charity that treats the journey as something to be listened to will mature.

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Good governance, then, is not about locking the path.

The board’s deepest responsibility is not to demand certainty,
but to protect the organisation’s ability to adapt without fear.

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ACCOUNTABILITY MUST INCLUDE UNCERTAINTY

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A Theory of Change is a hypothesis.

It explains how change might happen.

It is not:

• a guarantee,

• a contract with reality,

• proof of impact.

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It helps when it makes assumptions visible.
It drifts when it becomes frozen.

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A Theory of Change should be edited, not defended by impact reporting.

Impact reporting is where many charities unintentionally betray their own values.

Under pressure, reports often:

• over-claim causality,

• smooth out failures,

• turn learning into success stories,

• confuse activity with transformation.

 

But real destinations — real human change — do not arrive on schedule.

 

Some outcomes:

• take years to surface,

• appear sideways,

• or contradict initial assumptions.

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The quote reframes accountability:

The destination is not manufactured.
It emerges.

 

This does not excuse vagueness or laziness.
It demands a different form of rigour:

• clarity about what was attempted,

• honesty about what failed,

• evidence of learning,

• restraint about claims.

 

Naming uncertainty early is not an avoidance of risk;
it is how risk is prevented from scaling unseen.

 

True accountability asks:

“What did we discover that we did not know before?”

Not just:

“What numbers can we defend?”

 

This is how trust deepens — because donors sense when truth is being protected rather than polished.

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A DIFFERENT SOCIAL CONTRACT

 

Seen together, the quote offers charities a coherent alternative to performance culture.

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This is what failing on purpose looks like in a charity context:
learning early, adapting honestly, and refusing to scale false certainty.

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• Desire legitimises action without false certainty.

• The journey legitimises adaptation without shame.

• The destination legitimises patience without loss of accountability.

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This aligns directly with the book’s central idea:
that failure is not incompetence, but information — and that pretending otherwise leads to mission drift, theatre, and burnout.

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For donors, this reframing offers something rare:

• not the illusion of control,

• but participation in honest work.

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And for charities, it restores something essential:

• the right to move truthfully,

• learn publicly,

• and serve without performing success.

 

That is not failing donors.
That is respecting them.

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This book does not offer answers.
It offers better questions:

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• Where has certainty replaced curiosity?

• What do we promise because we feel we must?

• What would responsible honesty sound like?

• What truth are we now ready to tell?

• What uncertainty can we name publicly?

• What must change internally first?