That's ok... the donors will pay for it, right?

I admit I don't know that much about large scale capital fundraising and the timing of when the "quiet phase" is over. We could probably debate whether or not you need to be at 50% raised in pledges before development officers can talk to the press... but either way, Marnette Federis at the Voice of San Diego has an article that probably isn't good news for the construction of the new state-of-the-art San Diego Public Library project:

A fundraising effort has been underway since the project passed through City Council as part of a massive library overhaul in 2002. It was always envisioned that philanthropists would be counted on to fund a large portion of the project -- $50 million when the project was announced. But as project estimates have grown in the past few years and philanthropists have been counted on to cover an even larger share of the costs.

Today, fundraisers have only officially announced $3 million in pledges -- $82 million short of what planners say they need to complete the $185 million main library.

Just as the title of this blog indicates, in the category of things you don't want to tell the donor... this is probably one of them.