Recently, I worked on a project to collect information about online donors, volunteers and supporters of charities - and more specifically, animal welfare charitable supporters.
To achieve this, I contacted a variety of charities and asked them to encourage their supporters to participate in the survey. In return for their participation, I offered to create independant surveys and URL's for each participating organization and to share their organization specific data, as well as the cumulative data for all participating organizations.
Sadly, larger organizations showed no real interest in participating. However several smaller organizations were eager and excited to participate and very enthusiastic to receive the results.
We don't need no stinking information!
One response, however, was utterly astounding to me. One organization (who shall remain nameless), responded to me by saying "We have a great need for real, hands-on, fundraisers! Data and information are of no use to us."
I still don't know whether to laugh or cry over this response. Does this organization really think that "real, hands-on" fundraisers achieve success without data and information? I later relayed this tidbit to Ken Wyman, coordinator of the Humber College post graduate program in Fundraising and Volunteer Management. After he stopped laughing, he indicated that, unfortunately, there are still a good number of organizations who believe that fundraising simply requires people to get out there and ask everyone and anyone. (not to diminish the importance of asking - because that is important)
Unreal Fundraisers Wanted - please apply within
I'm bewildered by this attitude. I've invested an immense amount of personal resources to learn as much as possible about fundraising over the past year. I scrimped and saved for a year prior to this to make this educational experience possible. I've benefitted from research and data from individuals who have dedicated their lives to effective and ethical fundraising and philanthropic practices.
And according to the response I received from this particular organization - we're not "real, hands-on fundraisers".
I guess we should be looking for a new term for our occupations.
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