Saturday 15 March 2014

Yes, Fundraising is Hard Work!

I stopped in my tracks and chuckled as I was getting ready for work this morning. I was listening to an interview with Rob Thomas, Veronica Mars creator. He was talking about TV show and its leap to the big screen. The TV show's ratings were never great, but Veronica Mars had and it turns out still has a dedicated and loyal fan base.

Thomas created a Kickstarter page to raise money for a Veronica Mars movie. He started with a $2million goal and ended up raising $6million from 91,000 dedicated fans. But, here's the part I loved, here's what made me pause and chuckle:

"It’s been the most work,” said Thomas “I just finished signing 5,500 posters this week that are all going out to Kickstarter backers.”

Yes, thank you! Fundraising is hard work; sometimes hand cramping work. Maybe fundraising isn't for everyone. The story also featured Alyssa Rosenberg, Washington Post pop culture blogger.

“It’s a way of picking the lock on the Hollywood gate and getting around the gatekeepers,” said Rosenberg. “But that doesn’t mean there [aren't] enormous advantages in working with mainstream studios.”

While crowd funding is in vogue; I often refer to crowd fundraising as peer to peer event fundraising's cousin – it's important to recognize that it's hard work. If stewarding donors was easy wouldn't everyone be raising more money?

I hope this makes you chuckle today as well. It's not often that you hear someone in Hollywood be able to relate to the nonprofit world. Be great to your donors, embrace the hard work and know that it does make a difference.

Curious to see how your organization measures up with the rest of the crowd? Visit the Blackbaud Index and compare your fundraising prowess with the rest of the landscape.
index 742x454 Yes, Fundraising is Hard Work!

View full article

 

(unsubscribe from this feed)

No comments:

Post a Comment