# Obama – world's greatest fundraiser?

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/11/03/obama-world039s-greatest-fundraiser/
- Published: 2008-11-03T21:20:35+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The speed and duration of Obama’s fundraising has staggered commentators around 
the world. Raising funds in small quantities from huge numbers of US voters defies
previous rules of US election fundraising.

So what can we learn from this? If you look simply at his YouTube videos I think
the answer and lesson becomes apparent. We often talk about the importance of passion
in fundraising and how it drives relationships – but now something has trumped passion
and that is inspiration.

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Inspiration to my mind is greater than passion, though passion is an essential component.
It is more powerful than passion, because it lifts people to share and believe in
the inspirer’s vision.

Inspiration is what our CEOs should be about – lifting our organisations by inspiring
support; but how often does this happen? Good leaders are inspiring and that is 
a key difference between them and competent managers. Leaders set the far horizons
and inspire us to believe our organisations can go there. Let’s put a tick in the
essential column of our CEOs person spec and accept nothing less.