Firefly Fundraising is a member of the Attorney General of California’s Registry of Charitable Trusts, which explicitly forbids commission work.

To clarify why:

1. commission work sets up the wrong incentives, as it drives fundraisers to chase high-dollar, short-term returns rather than to help clients build long-term funding relationships;

2. it results in fundraisers ignoring or doing little work on low-dollar grants, which are often the first step towards later, high-dollar grants; and

3. it sets the wrong metrics for what fundraisers do, as it links success only to funding when, in fact:

   • rejected proposals can be part of a long-term term, successful process;

   • working on any grant, including one that is eventually rejected, results in writing and strategy that can be used on other grants successfully;

   • consulting on program and organization structure is often the highest value thing we do and is often done outside of any given successful or unsuccessful grant; and

   • rejections can be caused by things that are completely outside our purview, including board structure and demographics, organizational financial history, legal issues, etc.

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