Fundraising is bad for your image

It all started so enthousiastic. Our management wrote us an assignement that said:

Go out there and explore our possibillities to raise single payments for cordaid Mensen in Nood from new groups of donors through the internet. Be innovative and different. It’s a pilotproject, so be aware of the learning aspect!

And that we did! We learned. We learned a lot and than again the whole project left me with a little hangover. A hangover called Fundraising and Image. A hangover from dealing with your management in case of small or bigger crisis.

As a grown up organisation we started with the formation of a projectteam that gathered all the disciplines we needed for this job. Than we made a firm and clear briefing to pitch on a few selected partners that allready had earned there name in online marketingconcepting. We picked our partner very carefully and started to develop 3 ideas they had, to find and engage those new donors we were so desperatley looking for.

1. Streetview Southern Sudan (nominated for a Spin-award and winner of a Webby)
2. Interactive bannercampagne with SMS (also nominated for a Spin-award)
3. The first online running event ever (on Hyves, biggest dutch social netwerk)

Next to these 3 test we decided to roll out an email campaign through a network of affiliate partners. Been there, done that, nothing new, but we wanted to see if we could also raise single payments (normally used for monthly payments) and leads in this way to build a base of people we could contact in the future when a disaster is happening.

Goal: wich form of fundraising could help us to collect fast single payments in case of an emergency/disaster in the future.

And at this moment in my blog, I know that most of you think: so far so good, curious about the results. Because I know you are! And only a few of you are thinking: what did it cost? Because we all know that an investment is required if you want to find new donors and donations.

What happened?
Along the way a  person got a hold of the fundraising investments that we were making on a part of this campaign. He picked it up, spread it around without the context it should be placed in and there they were: Pownews. For those of you outside of Holland; Pownews broadcastst 5 days a week, about 20 minutes, late in the evening and has about 400.000 people watching them every night. Nothing journalistic about it, as coloured as it can be made to put a person or an organisation with it’s back against the wall. And there we were, confrontated with their pink microphone asking questions about our way of fundraising wich offcourse was completely out off line in their eyes!

What did we do?
We panicked. Invite them in and tell them what we are doing and why? Keep them out so we keep our face of the TV? What would you do? As a fundraiser I think we have nothing to hide. We invest as any other business but with even more care, because of the fact that we are dealing with donation money. We have our rules (from the Central Bureau of Fundraising in Holland) we work by and they tell us exactly how much money we can spend on tracking down new donors/donations. But the outside world does not know that, do they? And we are scared that if they do know they might think differently about us, turn their backs on us maybe? And does our own management know? Will they back us up when the going get’s tough? Does your director stand up with his or her head up high and tell the press that this is the way we operate and that it is perfectly normal? Does he or she feel as proud about the profession of fundraising as we do?

I am very curious about your thoughts on this issue. So please, let me know!

Are we in sales or in begging?
I always thought we fundraisers were in sales. And ok, we could call it a professional form of begging when we are explaining our profession to yet another ignorant person at a party. But we’re joking than right? Because we know exactly what we are doing and we stand for it! At least I do! I am proud of what I do! Why? Because of the proffession I choose and the way I am excecuting it, this world is a better place to live in for us all! And yes I get paid to do it, it is not a voluntary job!

Do we understand each other?
I think we fundraisers do. I think we still have to go a long way with everybody else, starting with our own management. If you have your management in your corner than it is time to go outside. Tell the world what it is all about! Or do we rather keep them in their fairytale where all their donated money goes to help for 100%?