This election has unleashed a tremendous amount of creativity. Here’s a piece I stumbled on today. It is remarkable how individuals with small or nonexistent budgets can do cool things that get attention.
So, if your choice is to hire that person with the nice resume vs. the person who is really really into your cause -and whose resume maybe isn’t quite as impressive, I would probably go with the energy.
In the Times yesterday is a story with the title “If No One Sees It, Is It An Invention?” It’s about an inventor who, instead of writing a paper seen by a few tens of people in a journal instead made YouTube videos and became a huge sensation.
These videos led him to all kinds of job offers and tremendous recognition. Now, just change “inventor” to “nonprofit executive” and “invention” to “cause.” If you are not documenting the important, moving things you do every day, and getting those videos distributed online, you are missing the boat.
The nonprofit community is rightfully scared that the market and economic problems will mean a big hit for charities. If my portfolio is down 40% the first thing that might go is my annual gift.
But nonprofits would be wrong not to ask for those gifts. Organizations need to redouble their efforts to grow their donor file and expand the number of supporters. (Which also means that organizations must be aggressive online and begin using the web to grow their donor list.) Even in a downturn many people can afford to make charitable gifts.
There’s a nice piece on Seth Godin’s blog today on this subject. In defense of raising money. It was written by Sasha Dichter and I am not sure why it was on Seth’s blog and not Sasha’s. (Maybe because Seth has a lot more traffic.)
Here’s a highlight:
You’re devoting your life, your spirit, your energy, your faith into making the vision you have of a better future into a reality.
So why are you so scared to ask people for money? Why do you feel afraid to say: “This problem is so important and so urgent that it is worth your time and your money to fix it. I’m devoting my whole life to fixing this problem. I’m asking you to devote some of your resources to my life’s work too.”
Maybe it’s because:
1. People think that asking for money is all about asking for money. It is and it isn’t. Most of the time it is about inspiring someone to see the world the way you do – with the same understanding of the problems and the same vision of how it can be overcome – and convincing them that you and your organization can actually make that vision into a reality. The resources come second.
2. People think that storytelling is a gift, not a skill. Learning how to do this – to be an effective storyteller, to consistently connect with different people from different walks of life and convince them to see the world as you do and walk with you to a better future – is hard, but it’s a skill like any other. It’s true that some people are born with it. But it still can be learned and practiced, and if your nonprofit is going to succeed, you’d better have more than one or two people who can pull this off.
3. Money = Power. Our society has done a spectacular job of creating enormous amounts of wealth. At the same time, wealth is associated with power, and not having wealth can feel like not having power. So going to someone who has money and saying, “You have the resources, please give some of them to me” doesn’t feel like a conversation between equals.
How about this instead: “You are incredibly good at making money. I’m incredibly good at making change. The change I want to make in the world, unfortunately, does not itself generate much money. But man oh man does it make change. It’s a hugely important change. And what I know about making this change is as good and as important as what you know about making money. So let’s divide and conquer – you keep on making money, I’ll keep on making change. And if you can lend some of your smarts to the change I’m trying to make, well that’s even better. But most of the time, we both keep on doing what we’re best at, and if we keep on working together the world will be a better place.”
4. I’m terrified you’ll say ‘no.’ We all hate rejection. Being rejected when asking for money is a double whammy. You were already scared to ask, and then the person said no. They have all the power. You walk away, head down, empty hat in hand.
Get over it. You’re still devoting your life to this work. You shared an idea with someone. You didn’t convince them today, but you probably got their attention. Maybe you’ll convince them tomorrow. Maybe they’ll tell a friend. Maybe you learned something that will make your pitch better the next time. At least you got your story out there to the right person.
You made a change – you just didn’t get any money in return.
The comedic piece everyone is talking about today is from Ron Howard, which I have pasted below. I think there is certainly an age thing here. I get it, I appreciate it. My younger employees, not so much.
[Just to bring this back to our subject for a minute. Is it a coincidence that all this comedy is video and not a really witty blog post? Video people. It's the other white meat, it's what's for dinner, and breakfast and lunch. It's what you need to be doing to get your messages out.]
This election, and Sarah Palin in particular, has been a dream for comic writers. But what gets my attention in this clip is how easy it is to create a meme about what it means to be the mayor of a small town. A particular small town in Alaska. In fact, it seems the mayor of a town without its own schools or fire department doesn’t really do all that much. Leave it to the Daily Show to make the gap between talking heads and truth the funniest thing:
Alison Fine just gave us a head’s up about a cool project she developed with her colleague Nancy Scola to help ensure a fair and safe election for all U.S. citizens. It’s called Twitter Voter Report and it brings together a team of techies, Twitter users and a Wiki to aggregate information on voting day.
From their website:
On November 4th 2008, millions of Americans will go to over 200,000 distinct voting locations and using different systems and machinery to vote. Some voters will have a terrific experiences, and others will experience the same problems we have been hearing about for years – long lines, broken machines, inaccurate voting rolls, and others will experience problems that we haven’t heard about before. Using Twitter.com and 1-866-Our-Vote Hotline, voters will have a new way to share these experiences with one another and ensure that the media and watchdog groups are aware of any problems.
As news outlets and blogs will report on Election Day stories, we are building an invaluable resource for thousands of voters to get immediate help. From questions like “where do I vote” or “how do I make sure that my rights are being upheld,” Twitter Voter Report augments these efforts by providing a new way for voters to send text messages (aka tweets) via cellphones or computers which will be aggregated and mapped so that everyone can see the Nation’s voting problems in real-time.
Imagine a Nationwide web map with pins identifying every zip code where Americans are waiting over 30 minutes to vote or indicating those election districts where the voting machines are not working. Collectively we will inform each other when when the lines too long and ensure that media and watchdog groups know where problems exist.
October 15th is Blog Action Day, an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters to post about the same issue on the same day. This year’s topic was poverty so See3 decided to host a screening of the Dollar A Day film series released by GlobalDevelopmentMatters.
Bloggers, activists and friends gathered at our office to watch The New Silver, a film about a woman in Bolivia who is fighting to build a better life for her family with the help of microcredit. Here’s the trailer for the film:
We followed the screening with a discussion of micro-credit and the role that film and new media can have in educating the public about social issues. Here are some photos from the event:
How Can I Help?
Check out these organizations and join their efforts to save lives and end global poverty.
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/
Oxfam America is an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice.
The Senate is debating a new Farm Bill, which will set policies that could either help small farmers at home and abroad-or keep them struggling. Please contact your senators today and ask them to create a Farm Bill that reduces misguided subsidies and shifts those resources to support the programs that really need the money.
http://www.bread.org/
Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. Bread for the World members write personal letters and emails to Congress. Working through our churches, campuses and other organizations, we engage more people in advocacy. Right now, Bread for the World is pushing for more and better poverty-focused development assistance and passage of the Global Poverty Act.
http://www.onevote08.org/
ONE Vote ‘08 is an unprecedented, non-partisan campaign to make the fight against global poverty and disease a key foreign policy and security issue in the 2008 election. We’re mobilizing voters across the country to ensure that the next president makes a historic commitment to save lives by fighting global disease and extreme poverty.
http://www.mercycorps.org/
MercyCorps exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities. Global Citizen Corps is a Mercy Corps program that aims to build a national network of youth who think and act globally, have the passion to build a better world, and are committed to ending global poverty.
http://www.care.org/
CARE fights root causes of poverty in the world’s poorest communities. We place special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty.
Host your own Dollar A Day screening!
Visit: http://globaldevelopmentmatters.org/host-a-screening
