“I’ll donate at the end…”
I was teaching a fundraising seminar last week and I had a student pitch me. I don’t always do this, but sometimes I’ll have someone come up and ask me for money. It’s a real pitch, in that, if they’re good, I’ll donate. Usually I donate something; I don’t want to disappoint them or give them a hard time. So I’m open to the pitch.
So the young man makes the pitch, and I ask him, “What have you given?” He takes out his credit card, slaps it down and says, “I’ll donate at the end. I’ll make up whatever we need to get.”
So think about it. What’s wrong with donating at the end?
Well, in my case, I gave less than what I was thinking of giving, and less than what another student got from me later (I’m an easy touch). I gave less because I felt that he was less committed. If he didn’t give yet, why should I?
But there’s another problem with his making his contribution at the end. By thinking that he will put his donation on the credit card, it means that he can never participate in fundraising that’s bigger than his credit limit. If he’s thinking that he needs to raise $1,000, well, if he fails, he’ll just pay it off over time. But he can never participate in a campaign that’s $50,000 or $100,000 (I presume, unless he has an amazing credit limit). His participation will always be limited by his credit limit.
Right now, he has a low limit for fundraising. Raising $1,000 isn’t that hard; like with all fundraising, he just has to go to enough people. However, if he’s thinking that he’ll “just make up the difference” he is not going to learn how to fundraise. The key to fundraising is to engage other people. So long as he relies on himself to reach the goal, he never learns how to rely on others. By pulling out his credit card, he tells me that he’s not going to put the effort into engaging other people. Unless he changes his attitude, his dreams will always be limited by what he can personally do.
Would you like to learn fundraising? I teach fundraising to volunteers, board and staff members of nonprofit organizations; you can contact me, Katherine Wertheim, CFRE at Katherine@werth-it.com.