Asking is as old as giving – but fundraising has been overlooked and problematised throughout history, receiving minimal academic attention while frequently attracting public hostility. This chapter explores why invisibility and infamy have been dominant motifs in the history of fundraising, and suggests that a focus on what the raising of funds has achieved over the centuries, rather than simply documenting the changing techniques and technologies used by fundraisers, offers an alternative account of the emergence of the profession. This chapter is also concerned with the broader context that makes fundraising possible, looking beyond the rare documented instances of historic solicitation to focus instead on the social conditions that are necessary for fundraising to exist and to be effective.

Fundraisers have much lower profiles than philanthropists

Askers leave far fewer traces than philanthropists. The actions of donors are recorded in the history books as well as on buildings, benches, plaques and pillars. Yet no one recalls who asked Andrew Carnegie or Bill Gates to make their first donation, or who funded the speaking tours and campaigning that led to the abolition of slavery or more recent equalities legislation, or who organised the fundraising for voluntary schools and hospitals in the pre-welfare state era, or for museums and science laboratories today.

This collective amnesia is even-handed, as it also overlooks fundraising's more problematic contributions, most notably the infamous sale of indulgences that motivated Martin Luther to start the Reformation in 1517. One of the reasons that fundraising's role in the schism that split the Christian church is easily overlooked is due to changes in terminology. The men licensed to sell papal pardons and indulgences to raise funds for religious foundations were called ‘Pardoners’ rather than ‘Fundraisers’. Notable examples include Johan Tetzel, whom Luther encountered when he was professor of scripture in Wittenberg and whose name was later attached to the annual Tetzel Award, organised by the American Philanthropy Monthly magazine, for ‘the most discreditable fundraising performance’ each year (Mullin, 2007, p 14), and the fictional Pardoner who is one of the 24 storytellers in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, written in the late 14th century. The word ‘fundraiser’ did not become the common term for people undertaking this activity until many centuries later, possibly as late as mid-20th century (Turner, 1991, p 38).