Work Burns Like Fire in Their Bones

There must be a flaming commitment to the mission of the organization. But more than that, it is an absolute love affair for the work itself.

The successful fundraisers understand that it is through their efforts that lives are changed. And lives are saved.

It is the fundraiser who builds the buildings, provides the equipment, sends needy kids to camp, builds the scholarship funds, helps cure cancer through research.

The fundraiser becomes a zealot, a born-again on a mission.

Most of the successful fundraisers are self-avowed workaholics. And they love it. They wear it as a badge of honor. For the successful ones, it isn’t work, it is sheer joy.

Kemmons Wilson is the founder of Holiday Inn. He somehow never took time to get his high school diploma. One year he was asked to return to the school he had attended to give the commencement address.

He started off by telling the group he probably was the wrong person to be talking to them because he never got a degree. He went on to say that he really didn’t have sage counsel to give them.

“The only thing that really sets me apart from most men is that I’ve only worked half days for my entire life. That’s really the best advice I can give you. You follow that— work only half days every day. And it doesn’t matter which half— the first 12 hours or the second 12 hours.”