Let me introduce you to Lisa Ray and her blog, Two Knives. Lisa is a recent stay-at-home mom living in Minneapolis. I think her blog is extremely well written. Todays post, about her experience this past weekend at a local fundraiser, is very funny, short, and long on insight for those of us in the fundraising community. Here it is:
I spent much of Saturday morning trying to alleviate my guilt over spending about $600 at a fundraiser the night before. Donating, I mean. I donated $600.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s all for a good cause. People Serving People is a family homeless shelter in downtown Minneapolis. It was their annual fundraiser - food, drinks, music, and a live auction.
I decided it was a convergence of three factors that led to the ill-fated bid, or as my friend Joni said, I created the perfect storm:
- an auction, which ignited my gambling-addiction tendencies, combined with
- homeless seven-year-olds, combined with
- two (or several) glasses of vodka.
I flashed my bidding number faster than you can say Indian gaming. The prize, which was much more appealing at the time, is an afternoon in local radio studio watching how a live show works. At least my 9-year-old seems excited about going.
I think I’ll have to stay away from fundraisers. At least until I’m employed again.
My takeaway: Sometimes, we’re so sophisticated in our approach to securing the gift - our segmentation, our careful campaign development, our dazzling creative, our whiz-bang back end analysis. Then again, maybe it’s because a couple of unknown factors (I call them “Donation-X Factors”) came together in perfect alignment, like whirling planets in some cosmic convergence, that actually produced the sale, er, donation. I mean donation.
Tags: Blog, Communications, General Fundraising, Nonprofit
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