7 Paths Blog Fundraising
Posts Tagged ‘Fundraising’
Cornered by job loss
Thursday, December 10th, 2009 by richfossLast night I watched an Italian film, Days and Clouds, about a man, Michele, who is forced out of a twenty-year business partnership by a good friend. For two months he keeps the loss of his job a secret from his wife, Elsa, who is completing a degree.
The 2007 film is an unblinking look at a marriage under the duress of a man losing his career. Life closes in around them and they are forced to sell both their boat and their home. A middle-aged man, he desperately tries to find another job while dealing with the shame of his job loss. Not only did he not tell his wife for two months, even after he told her, he refused to tell their twenty-year old daughter. She discovers her father’s job loss when she sees him working as a courier delivering packages on a motorbike, a job he has taken out of desperation.
Elsa responds to their plight by taking two part time job as a telemarketer and secretary, both jobs that do not use her degree.
The film especially hit home for me because earlier this fall I began to have back trouble, eventually diagnosed as four compression fractures of vertebrae. In the middle of raising funds for a EGL project, I haven’t been able to drive for almost a month. Sarah has had to give me a hand much more than usual. She recently told a friend that in addition to her job as a nurse, caring for me is like a second full time job. Life has closed in around me. It’s been very humbling to not be able to travel for my work like I’m used to doing. And it’s very humbling to have to ask Sarah for help and other friends as well.
I’m fortunate that I haven’t lost my job. I’ve switched from raising funds to underwrite the writing and production of a 200-page eBook to actually writing the book (Green Light Fundraising: Your guide to raising $50,000 to $500,000 a year to light up the eyes of people you serve) with plans to pick up with the fund raising in 2010 when my back has healed.
Also, unlike the couple in the film, Sarah and I are part of Plow Creek Fellowship, a group that shares finances, so we will not lose our home because of my health crisis.
As I watched the film I couldn’t help but think of all the people my age who have lost their jobs worldwide in the two years since the film came out. There’s no easy way out of the wilderness when life becomes uncharted territory.
The film and my life both point to the same faint hope–the people around you suffer with you, struggle with you, and love you. Thanks Sarah, Plow Creek friends, and Evergreen Leaders board.
Survival
Monday, October 26th, 2009 by richfossRecently I talked with a nonprofit exec who said, “I’ve been in this business for thirty years and this is the first time I’ve been worried about survival [of an organization].”
When Evergreen Leaders was founded in 2003 we focused on leadership development for nonprofits. We still help nonprofits with leadership issues but when nonprofits begin to wonder if they can survive, fundraising becomes paramount.
The exec knows that their organization needs to ramp up their fundraising but they can little afford to hire a consultant. After listening to her, I described the current project that we are working on at EGL: raising funds to write a free ebook on sustainable fundraising, provide free online resources campaign job descriptions and forms, and once the ebook is published, and offer 90-minute conference calls for 6-8 readers of the ebook at $29 a person.
I could see her wheels turning as she recognized that potential value of the project for her nonprofit.
As I listened to her pain at having to make staff cuts, it deepened my passion for making this project succeed. Our communities depend on nonprofit’s like hers to provide crucial services to the most vulnerable among us.
To a lot of community nonprofit execs, it feels like pain and passion are in a race in their organizations. Let’s do our best to help passion win.
Stories move volunteer fundraisers
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 by richfossLeaders and fundraisers can use stories as a way to help volunteers understand the mission of a nonprofit and also move the volunteers to greater commitment.
Nonprofit leaders are often so immersed in their work that it seems common place to them and they forget that volunteers need to hear the stories. I’ve been working with Dave McClure, the executive director of the Youth Service Bureau (YSB) of Illinois Valley, a 31 year old nonprofit.
To help families succeed, often in crisis situations, YSB currently operates seven programs dealing with funding from 56 different federal, state and local sources as well as private foundations.
Dave and his board want to add an annual fundraising campaign to the mix to broaden their funding. To help the volunteers understand to work of this nonprofit that serves people in five county, I’ve suggested he tell a story. As Dave was wrapping up a steering committee meeting gathered to work on launching an annual fundraising campaign I realized he was forgetting the story. When prompted he told this story:
“Recently a mother, Ann,* who had been diagnosed with a mental illness was referred to us for therapy. She has a 22-month old child. The Department of Children and Family Services regularly refers to us their most difficult cases.
“Our therapists often meet with families in their homes because we find it to be the best way to help families succeed. Plus Ann didn’t have access to transportation to come to therapy.
“Unfortunately this is not a success story. One day recently Susan, the therapist, arrived at the home and Ann was very upset. They talked but Ann continued to be upset.
“At one point the 22-month old was playing with a noisy toy and it was squeaking. Ann shattered the toy, in front of her child, to keep it from squeaking. She was unable to control her anger, and Ann was afraid she would harm her child.
“Susan told Ann that she would have to call the DCFS hotline because Ann was endangering her child. After Susan made the call, she stayed with Ann until the investigators arrived and determined it was best to remove the child from the home.
“Later that day Ann threatened to harm Susan for causing her child to be taken from her. But the police were very helpful and no incidents occurred.
“It was not the therapeutic outcome that Susan or YSB wanted. But it was good to have the therapist in the home to see what was happening. I’m just thankful a YSB worker was there, on that day, so we could both protect that child and also prevent the mother from doing something she would regret. The child’s now in a foster home in the Illinois Valley,” Dave concluded.
“It was a success,” one of the volunteers said, “the child was in a safer place.”
As Dave told the story I could sense everyone in the room moving from being business and community leaders working on one more fundraising campaign, to being people deeply concerned for the welfare of this child and family.
And they were seeing their work on the campaign as one small part of making a difference in the incredibly complex family issues that a nonprofit like YSB works with every day.
Stories deepen our understanding of an organization and deepen the meaning of our role in the organization.
• Names and some details changed to protect privacy.