Crist gives it back

It's ironic that the act of giving back a donation to avoid the appearance of impropriety can actually make a politican look more guilty. First Coast News in Florida reports the following:

TALLAHASSEE, FL (AP) -- Governor-elect Charlie Crist has returned a $25,000 donation for his inauguration that came from a Fort Lauderdale law firm with ties to the insurance industry.

Crist spokeswoman Erin Isaac says the money was returned because it was given too close to the time the Legislature will hold a special session on the state's ongoing property insurance crisis. That session begins January 16th, just two weeks after Crist takes office.

It seems to be getting harder for a politican to score a buck in Florida these days. Just like the recent congressional race in district 22 between the incumbent Republican Clay Shaw and state Sen. Ron Klein, the Democrat. The Sun Sentinel reported on November 6th:

Shaw said he won't take money from tobacco or gambling interests, or the so-called "Big Sugar" companies. Klein said he refuses money from insurance companies, pharmaceutical interests and oil.

Finance, insurance and real estate committees and employees made up Shaw's largest source of contributions, by type, totaling at least $598,681, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Maybe Three 6 Mafia had it right when they performed live at the Oscars on March 5, 2006.

Learning lessons from spam?

If it felt like you got more spam in the past month or so, you're right. Information Week reports that November saw a 35% increase in spam volume. In October of 2005, there were 31 billion spams a day on average. By October of 2006, this increased to 63 billion. However, November saw two surges that averaged 85 billion messages a day, one from Nov. 13 to 22, the other from Nov. 26 to 28.

Spammers are using malware development tactics such as trying out new strains of spam in limited quantities to gauge how effective they are against filters, then sending out huge quantities only when they're sure a good number will slip through defenses.

I know, I know. Spamming is illegal and it is important to have clear privacy policies and some insist on double opt-in requirements... but there are also important lessons to be learned from the progession of both technological advancements being made by spammers. Even more interesting in the increasing use of direct marketing lessons being applied by savy spammers.

Are your approaches to fundraising emails this sophisicated?

Wikipedia's live donation counter

Christmas was a quite day at a fundraiser's home, however my brother did spend Friday night while traveling through town. It's crazy how good it feels to see family at this time of year. My brother reads my blog and he suggested last night that I mention Wikipedia Foundation's super cool fundraising website. You can watch a live list of all donations being made online. Check it out and hit refresh if you don't see if update within a minute.

"Gross" donors in Philadelphia

On November 10th Thomas Jefferson University shocked Philadelphia by announcing their plans to sell a large painting to a Wal-Mart heir's planned museum in Bentonville, Ark. The school planned to use the $68 million in revenue for capital improvements its campus. A condition in the sale gave the local residents 45 days to match the sale price.

Sure enough... thousands of donors heard the call and stepped up to meet the incredible goal which will keep the painting in Philadelphia.

Stephan Salisbury describes Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic as a dramatic 8-by-61/2-foot painting that depicts Dr. Samuel Gross, an acclaimed Jefferson surgeon, conducting an operation before students in the school's amphitheater. It was purchased by alumni for $200 and given to the school in 1878.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts led a frantic six-week fund-raising campaign to buy the huge canvas from Thomas Jefferson University. On December 21st the Philadelphia Inquirer reported the campaign had only raised $30 million and appeared to be well short.

But then Hugh Long, chief executive officer for Wachovia's MidAtlantic Banking Group, stepped in with a "secret" backup financing deal that allowed the museums to sign an agreement of sale yesterday with Jefferson.

I guess you could see this as the people's attempt to fight back at a Wal-Mart heir's attempt to steal a piece of art which is widely viewed as "an embodiment of the city's intellectual and creative life." But when you look at this list of rich donors, it just seems like a waste of money to keep a painting in a city.

It's all about opportunity cost right? What else could $68 million have bought for the city of Philadelphia? The fundraising effort continues, but as I read the press release, Wachovia is agreeing to cover the difference between whatever is ultimately collected and the $68 million goal.

Holiday message from 'a fundraiser'
Donate more than you spend on beer

I'm not going to be around the next couple days, so I wanted to find a holiday message that I could leave on the site for a couple days. Lucky for me, I heard about the Christmas message delivered by Jack de Groot, CEO of the Australian Catholic development organization Caritas Australia.

He noted that a working Australian will spend an estimated $856 on food and gifts - placing Australians amongst the most generous in the world when it comes to spending on Christmas. However, according to Caritus calculations, Australian donations to international development "only come to $43 per person - the equivalent of a slab of beer or a kilo and a half of prawns."

"Australians are a very generous people" said de Groot, "but we can do a lot more in terms of alleviating poverty if we really commit to it."

You gotta love nonprofit folks who call out donors for not being generous enough!

It's a busy time of year. We've spent a lot of time on this website talking about scandals within the nonprofit fundraising world. But, I want to make sure it is very clear - our goal here is to provide relevant news in a humorous way so that fundraisers and consultants who surf the web can get a good laugh. However, it is also my personally help belief that this site can INCREASE donor involvement in fundraising industry gossip in order to INCREASE donations.

So, if you've found any of these posts useful, make one more donation to a group you support... and do it right now through the new partnership between the research powerhouse at Charity Navigators and the fundraising excellence of Network for Good.

There is really no excuse for not making a donation right now... to the cause of your choice... with as much information as you could ever want, ease, convenience, giving time of year. IT IS ALL HERE RIGHT NOW.

Just make sure you donate more than what it would cost for this slab of Australian beer.

Welcome back "rallyfan"

"Rallyfan" over at Random Thoughts on Life and Work is back to blogging following recent surgery. Today's post tells the story of a random donor who ended up raising over $3,000 just by placing pictures of himself for sale on eBay. It's a very interesting story, and rallyfan makes some great observations... but if you ask me there more to the story than a lesson in the power of a thank-you.

This guy made $3,000 selling pictures of himself on eBay? ...and to think, I spent about four hours last weekend setting up a CafePress store and I've only sold 6 mugs and 4 shirts... to make it even worse, CafePress keeps getting hit by a DDoS attack so the store isn't even working.

Bingo hall closure a blow to charities

I saw an article this morning in the Fort Frances Times Online about the closure of the Fort Frances Bingo Hall on December 31st.

More than 20 local charities are scrambling to find alternate fundraising sources in this Ontario community. They range from the Fort Frances Aquanauts and FFHS band to the Fort Frances Volunteer Bureau and Legion Ladies’ Auxiliary.

But while I was going to write some snarky post about the ethics of fundraising through gambling... I was more interested in the reason given for WHY the bingo hall is closing. Take a guess. What do you think closed the hall?

Linda Larocque, vice-president of the Fort Frances Bingo Association, got an e-mail last Thursday regarding the closure. She said the reason given for the closure was “economic difficulties” as the number of bingo players has dwindled since the province-wide smoking ban came into effect May 31.

Given the amount of new laws here in the States banning smoking... I wonder if there is a fundraising niche market for smoking clubs. Maybe all donors need is a place to gamble, drink, and chain smoke in order to write big checks.

Nonprofit Board Crisis

At least once a week, Phil over at Gift Hub points me in the direction of an awesome website that I've never heard of before... and then once I find it, I'm always shocked that I never knew about it sooner. He did it to me again on Wednesday.

Be sure to check out an insightful blog by Mike Burns of Brody Weiser Burns called Nonprofit Board Crisis. Nice work Mike, great site!

Valassis to buy Advo for $1 billion in settlement

For all you direct mail junkies... here is a bit of news from the DMNews website:

Valassis Communications Inc. said Dec. 19 that it would buy fellow direct marketer Advo Inc. for $1.08 billion, an 11 percent discount to the original price in a deal ending a four-month legal battle.

Valassis a newspaper insert distributor based in Livonia, MI, will pay $33 a share in cash for Windsor, CT-based Advo, below the $37 a share it agreed to pay when the two companies first struck a deal. Including $125 million in Advo debt, the deal is valued at about $1.2 billion.

The transaction will create the nation's largest integrated media services provider, featuring comprehensive product and customer offerings in the industry serving 20,000 advertisers worldwide, including 94 of the top 100 advertisers in the United States. Advo's shared mail distribution business penetrates up to 114 million households, or 90 percent of U.S. homes, adding substantially to Valassis' weekly newspaper distribution of more than 60 million households.

We are all getting so blooming old

Despite the excitement from some fundraisers that baby boomers are going to be seeing the largest transfers of wealth from their aging parents which supposedly will increase donations... I still know a lot of direct mail folks who are worried their donor file consists donors in their 80s and 90s who may be getting too old too give by direct mail.

But what about when the fundraisers get too old?

In 1970 Janet Knox started a fundraising committee in the UK. She gathered her friends from All Saints' Church in High Wycombe and the group began raising money for cancer research. In the past 36 years the group has raised more than £313,000 by organizing lunches, coffee mornings and street collections.

Unfortunately, the group is getting old and announced recently that it was closing down because it can't find volunteers to continue the good work.

Fellow fundraiser Shirley Read, 73, of Wethered Park, Marlow, said: "We wanted to hand over the reigns to the younger generation, but they just don't seem to be interested. It's such a shame."

Janet Knox described it this way, ""We are all getting so blooming old. We absolutely loved it when we were involved, but now it is time to give it up."

Donations as sacred duty

Check out this press release which describes a recently completed blood drive in Iraq. Participation was said to be heavy as workers rushed forward to be donors "as a humanitarian and national sacred duty." This article hit my RSS feed today because of the keyword donor. Not exactly on topic with the types of donations we usually talk about, but I was struck by how impossible it is for me to put myself in the shoes of one of those donors.

Trying to come up with words to describe these donors... courageous, optimistic, and generous come to mind. I used to think I was in the fundraising business because the causes I worked for were so noble... but it's possible I'm in it for the simple reason that donors are the most amazing people on earth and I have a need to understand what goes on in our heads that makes us want to be donors.

Is it just a chemical release of dopamine or do all donors see some kind of humanitarian and national sacred duty in the act of giving?

Auction gets $1 for dinner with Gov. Blanco

During a charity lunch presented by the Monroe Chamber of Commerce, in northeastern Louisiana, the last item up for bid was a chance to dine with Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

The AP reports that the bidding opened at $1,000 and dropped to $500 before the auctioneer accepted a $1 bid from bank executive Malcolm Maddox, a regional chairman for Capital One. Others were trying to bid on the dinner when the bidding abruptly closed.

Chamber president Sue Edmunds apologized for the "poor joke gone awry." Maddox came forward Monday to donate $1,000 to the chamber. He won't be dining at the governor's mansion, however. Edmunds said a chamber official will be going in Maddox's place.

While a spokesperson for Blanco said the Governor was too busy to care. But, how could that not sting? Isn't that the first rule when you are in one of these "date-auctions"? You have to have a ringer in the bidding to drive up the price. PETA has shown they make interesting use of these auctions to confront celebrities... I bet they would have paid more than a $1.

More on MADD Canada

The Globe and Mail published a piece today on the MADD Canada decision to suspend national fundraising. Joe Friesen and Paul Waldie give an excellent summary of the actual issue in question - the pressure on charities to use "agressive accounting techniques" in order to mask the true cost of fundraising. It's refreshing to see this issue addressed in an open and intelligent manner instead of the "gotcha journalism" used last week by the Toronto Star.

Meanwhile, local MADD chapters across Canada continue to remind the press that fundraising is continuing on the local level.

Oprah mulls reality show on philanthrophy

Following the ratings success of Oprah's "pay it forward" episodes, the talk show icon has developed a new reality show, tentatively titled The Big Give. According to ABC, the show will present 10 people with large sums of money and other resources and challenges them to find "the most powerful, sensational, emotional and dramatic ways to give to others."

The contestants will gradually be narrowed as the group confronts a "big catch" each week complicating their efforts, with the winner getting his or her "wildest dream come true."

Much ado about Squidoo

I saw Seth Godin on TV last night. He was talking about the power of brands and I couldn't stop thinking how Seth himself is a brand by now. When he endorses an idea - people listen.

Because of his success, I would not be surprised to see Squidoo take off in 2007. It's like "Web 2.0 for dummies." And, it might even put a couple dollars in your (or a charity's) pocket. Afraid of being left out, I set up my own lens on Squidoo for Don't Tell the Donor. I hope you'll check it out.

Need the perfect gift?

Don't Tell the Donor is proud to present a few holiday gift ideas for the fundraiser in your life. What better way for Development Directors to thank their staff or even to send to your favorite donors?

While we plan to introduce several more items in the coming days, we only have a few items available right now, but you can pick out various size mugs, t-shirts, a sweatshirt, or even a teddy bear.

This first batch of products carry the slogan "Shhh... let's just keep this between you and me." Followed by the URL: www.DontTellTheDonor.org

Give them as gifts and the fundraiser in your life will not only love you... he/she will be impressed that you read such an excellent blog... or keep them for yourself and impress all your peers at the next fundraising conference. Click here to new store right now!

Big splash across the pond

About a month ago, a website called Intelligent Giving ran an article warning potential donors away from Children in Need just two days before its annual telethon on BBC. They claimed it was "a lazy and inefficient way of giving", largely because the charity is a grant-giver. In other words, it passes on donors' money to other charities which means donors lose control of where their money goes and pay a double set admin costs.

Given the recent whirlwind surrounding the Toronto Star's hit job on MADD, I thought it would be interesting to look at the fallout from this publicity splash.

By November 29th (two weeks after the story broke), the Guardian ran an article titled, "Pudsey's worst nightmare" in a reference to the stuffed bear Children in Need uses as their mascot. The paper describes Intelligent Giving as a self-appointed watchdog.

Marketing itself as a website run by donors for donors, Intelligent Giving was launched in October by two former journalists. It ranks the effectiveness of charities by analysing their financial reports and giving them percentage scores for criteria such as transparency and administration costs.

However, the Guardian article also raised questions about the methodology used for Intelligent Giving's ranking system. Peter Heywood, who launched Intelligent Giving in October 2006 with his own financial backing, fired back with a response on his blog.

After two weeks of national media coverage in the UK, it appears that BOTH sides won. The Intelligent Giving site claimed to be receiving 10,000 hits a day and clearly got the publicity it was looking for. However, Children in Need also pulled in a pulled in a record £18.3m on the night of the appeal.

MADD board fights back

They are steaming mad. MADD published a statement from the National Board and also sent out an open letter to the editor of the Toronto Star. The main criticism of the fundraising program centers on joint allocation of expenses based on a "word count" system. MADD claims that they were specifically told how to allocate costs by a representative of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). They even point to a conversation with Mr. G. Garcia from an audit more than four years ago.

In a face-to-face meeting held in MADD Canada’s National Office on July 16, 2002, Mr. Garcia recommended that a word-allocation approach be adopted in assigning expenditures between the purely fundraising activities of MADD Canada and its victim services, public education and awareness, and chapter services. Mr. Garcia then demonstrated how this word-allocation system would apply. MADD Canada took immediate steps to follow-up on the recommendation made by Mr. Garcia.

The organization also defends the CEO's decision not to meet with the Star reporter by saying, "the reporter had made his biases clear from the outset, and it was his aggressive and threatening attitude that led Mr. Murie to decide that it would be prudent to have a written copy of the reporter’s questions and a written copy of his responses."

I know for a fact that lots (and lots and lots) of other charities use joint allocation of costs in both Canada AND the United States. Some use a word count method and some take direct mail letters and count the amount of square inches used by fundraising text in order to allocate costs. Yeah, it's crazy. But, if we are going to talk reasonably about it, we should know all the facts and we should also talk about the huge problems involved with using these measures to evaluate effectiveness in the first place.

Who remembers when the Sacramento Bee went after Defenders of Wildlife and other environmental groups in 2001 over joint allocation of fundraising costs?

Regular readers will see I added an UPDATE to an article from earlier today and reading the a spokeswoman denies the Star's report that MADD has suspended it's fundraising program.

Donating to promote movies, part II

Jada Pinkett Smith has donated $1 million to the Baltimore School for the Arts, asking that its new theater be dedicated to classmate Tupac Shakur - according to reports filed by the AP on Monday. The gift was made by Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation and will be used for renovation and expansion.

Unlike when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson gave $2 million to Miami University timed to promote his movie Gridiron Gang, I actually want to go see Will Smith's new movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, which opens Friday.

Toronto Star reports MADD Canada suspends fundraising

The Toronto Star reported shocking news on Wednesday morning. After a series of scathing articles aimed at the fundraising practices of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in Canada - the newspaper claimed the nonprofit has suspended fundraising operations. The move comes days after CEO Andrew Murie defended the organizations fundraising practices.

A Star investigation published Saturday delved into MADD's internal financial statements and revealed that only about 19 cents of every dollar goes to victim services and the fight against drunk driving. The charity, which has for many years been telling the public that most of its money is spent on charitable programs, has been counting as charity the work of professional telemarketers and other fundraisers. MADD does this, Murie has said, on the theory that their calls for cash are also spreading the message that drinking and driving is a criminal offence with sometimes fatal consequences. The federal charity regulator does not condone this practice.

Shortly after the story was published, the national charity's fundraising campaigns were suspended, Murie announced Monday evening, according to MADD volunteers on the national conference call. "We've been off the phones since Saturday morning," Murie said during the call.

The article goes on to say local chapters are claiming it's not enough and they want to bring in an outside firm to scour the $12 million-a-year charity's books.

UPDATE (8:56pm): A representative of MADD Canada went on Talk Radio 650 AM today to refute the Star's claim. Louise Knox, MADD's Western Chapter Services Manager, says the charity has not suspended fund raising, and does not need to. She says they fall within Canada Revenue guidelines, and keep in close contact with the government.