When donors attack

Sometimes donors start to feel like the organization they support strays from its mission - so they stop donating and find another organization to give their money/time to. It's a very free market idea... survival of the fittest, right. I mean, there are more than 1.3 million nonprofits afterall.

Yet, sometimes... the brand is so strong and the organization's history is so connected to the psyche, donors feel the need to stage a mutiny and fight for the very identity of the nonprofit in question. Rather than forming a splinter group, dissents attempt a coup, even if it means going public in their battle.

This appears to be the case at the ACLU. Roger Craver at The Agitator blog draws our attention to a story in the New York Times about a protest group calling for ouster of ACLU leadership. The fundraiser in me immediately asks how this will affect crucial year end giving. But there is something to be said about the power of the brand that this group feels compelled to fight rather than take their dollars and go elsewhere.