Gift horse #2 requires oral inspection
Howard Lake | 10 November 1997 | Blogs
Pledged donations can have a habit of veering more towards the pledge than the donation.
There can’t, however, be many bigger donations that have slipped through a fundraiser’s fingers than the £625 million pledged by His Royal Highness Prince Hadji Mohd Al Alsagof van Eldik to the United Nations for technological development in the Third World. His Royal Highness even got a standing ovation at a Melbourne Conference last month for his generosity.
Unfortunately for the recipients, who apparently believed he was one of the world’s six wealthiest men, HRH turned out to be a failed Australian builder who lives penniless in the Philippines. His brother commented: “He says he’s a billionaire prince exiled from North Borneo, but that’s the biggest load of **** I have ever heard”.
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- Gift horse requires oral inspection (6 November 1997)
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.