Friday 16 May 2014

Nature of Dialogue

The first Principle of the Empowerment Dialogue Program is that Fundraising at its best is a Dialogue but there is a very special characteristic of Dialogue that we may not appreciate. In the words of the famous German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer:



To reach an understanding in a dialogue is not merely a matter of putting oneself forward and successfully asserting one’s own point of view, but being transformed into a communion in which we do not remain what we are.[1]
 
Gadamer is saying something very profound – that we “transform” each other in true dialogue into new individuals with changed perspective and feeling. There is a transformative part to dialogue and this is a vital part to making dialogue the basis of the very best of fundraising.

[1] Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, Reprint Edition, (June 2013).

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