Around Board tables, we sometimes hear about big gifts from previously unknown donors or million-dollar galas or large grants from foundations - all to other nonprofit groups - and someone invariably says, “Wow! How did they get so lucky? Maybe we can be lucky too. We should try our own [wine auction/ approach to Phil Knight/ proposal to the Gates Foundation] ...”

We need to ask, “Was it just luck?” The answer is almost always “No”.

So why were those nonprofit groups successful in their fundraising projects?

The short answer is this:

1. They have already done important work

2. They have exciting plans

3. They build their fundraising efforts over the long term.

Let’s take a recent compelling example at the national level that we’ve all heard about: The Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS. The ALS Association, which funds research on the disease, has been working since 1985 at the national level and through chapters all over the U.S. (like ALSA – Oregon and Southwest Washington). Their mission also includes care services, public education, and public policy. Their chapters provide comprehensive patient services and support to the ALS community.

That’s 30 years of great work and a compelling vision, “To create a world without ALS.”

The ALS Association has been conducting outreach and delivering support to ALS patients and their families for many years. Through their chapters, they KNOW these folks, and have frequent contact with them, including social media contact.

And that’s how the Ice Bucket Challenge got started and happened – not through the ALSA staff, but through the beneficiaries of their work, who felt passionately the need for more research to end ALS. The ALS Association raised $115 million for research in an 8-week period in 2014.

It was a natural use of social media. But here’s what made it possible: Large networks of ALSA-engaged people already existed (most of whom were donors through ALSA’s annual Walk to Defeat ALS event and other appeals), and some of them had contacts with celebrities, which heightened the visibility and caused it to go viral.

The Ice Bucket Challenge was a phenomenon that summer, but it was also the result of decades of great work.

And it continues, with ALSA building long-term strategies for retaining the giving of thousands of new donors attracted during the Ice Bucket Challenge. But more importantly, they have leveraged a one-time opportunity for fundraising into long-term impact on their critical work of creating a world without ALS.

I wish you heart-felt passion for doing great work combined with a long-term perspective.

Great fundraising can follow.