Philanthropy Is Love
For more than 25 years, Valerie Mullen Pletcher has lived and breathed fundraising. Based just south of Washington D.C., her fundraising career has been guided by one conviction.
“Fundraising at its core is about love,” she says.
Valerie’s journey with the Institute of Sustainable Philanthropy (IfSP) gave her the research, tools, and language to turn belief into conviction — not only in her own practice, but also in the training and transformation of her team.
Identity as a fundraiser
Valerie describes herself as an “intentional fundraiser.” From her early days in public broadcasting to her current role with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), she has pursued excellence not just in raising money, but in nurturing meaningful relationships.
“That has been my lifelong pursuit — just really finding the excellence in both fundraising management and fundraising activities. It’s the discipline of what I call the ministry of fundraising.”
That ministry, for Valerie, is inseparable from her faith.
“Philanthropy is love. Love is philanthropy. God is love. And so those things don’t separate for me. I always have believed that… in our work in the nonprofit sector, no matter what your spiritual beliefs are, that respect for the other’s humanity must be at the core.”
“Philanthropy is love. Love is philanthropy. God is love. And so those things don’t separate for me.”
From belief to validation
Valerie has always believed that love was the heartbeat of philanthropy. But IfSP’s course in philanthropic psychology offered validation and a research foundation to strengthen that belief.
“It gave me such great lift to articulate the research and data behind what most people see as fundraising. It helps overcome the idea that our methods are just based on somebody’s opinion... but with nothing really concrete behind it,” she says.
“One of the top takeaways was a whole new set of language and tools to help people understand that giving isn’t just about a vision that they have, it’s actually related to their identity.”
Team culture transformed
When Valerie joined FOCUS, the development team was small and relatively inexperienced. Many staff were missionaries straight out of college, raising their own salaries but without outside fundraising experience or training.
But IfSP’s philanthropic psychology courses filled that gap.
“It actually has had a huge impact on how we train missionaries to raise their own salaries. For example, now [one staff member] has transformed our whole mission support raising training. It now has much better alignment with our benefactors and we’ve seen some growth.”
Valerie says the training didn’t just shape fundraising practices. It reshaped team identity.
“It’s transformed our communications… they’re now much more aligned with our mission... and with God’s love and philanthropy.”
Helping donors to give AND receive love
For Valerie, one of the most profound insights of philanthropic psychology is that giving is not a one-way transaction.
“It ultimately unlocks the ability for the individual to receive love from the organisation. The donor thinks they’re just giving. But they’re actually coming to receive as well, because it is a mutual relationship.”
The shift from transactional giving to mutual transformation is at the heart of her practice. It’s why she pushes her team — and herself — to go deeper in every communication.
“It’s about helping people feel loved by the communication — because why shouldn’t you feel loved every time you open an email or a letter?”
This perspective, she says, has helped unlock deeper relationships with donors, creating space for them to be loved as much as they love through their giving.
Donor identity
The philanthropic psychology approach also transformed how Valerie and her team understood donor relationships. Previously, like many fundraisers, they focused on matching donor interests with organisational needs. “I used to ask, ‘How would you like to see the church change with your philanthropy?’,” she says. “This is very much an action-oriented way of looking at things without a lot of individual exploration.”
The Institute's training taught them to go deeper.
"This gave you an understanding of how giving related to their individual identity. How can we help donors move from one approach that might be very surface level to another that's way more meaningful for them?"
This shift from surface-level engagement to identity-based connection proved transformational. Rather than simply asking donors what they wanted to fund, Valerie's team learned to understand how giving connected to donors' deepest sense of self and purpose. The result was more meaningful relationships. Ultimately, this means more sustainable philanthropy.
A call to love at the centre of fundraising
Valerie believes the philanthropic psychology courses are not just for fundraisers.
“Definitely, I think it would be wonderful if organisations did this alongside their program teams, board members and volunteers... Even donors could benefit from understanding this to help unlock their own philanthropy.
“Take our own organisation, which was very numbers oriented. Our philanthropic journey with them, which included a lot of the faith-based journey, allowed them to still maintain their core identity in that space, but opened up their hearts to the idea that love belongs in this work.”
The Certificate in Philanthropic Psychology is an eight-week online course that is changing how fundraiser’s fundraise. Find out more at: https://www.philanthropy-institute.org.uk/certificate-philpsych
This post was written by June Steward