Bah Humbug
Howard Lake | 8 December 2008 | Blogs
Isn’t it funny in this time of credit crunch, collapsing banks, economic crisis, and more doom and gloom predictions everywhere you turn, how some fundraisers and organisations appear to be oblivious to what is going on? In fact, over the past few weeks I have come across a number of examples of abysmal practice that just makes you wonder whether, even now, some charities just assume the money will just keep on rolling in.
If these weren’t so sad, it would almost be funny!
I know of a supporter who raised around £1,000 doing an event for a charity and simply needed the charity to give him a receipt so that he could get the money match funded by his employer and double the value of his gift. He has emailed them three times now and had absolutely no response.
I’m sure he feels really valued and will be bound to do even more for them next year.
A potential supporter informed a well-known charity they were keen to sponsor two children via a high level giving product. They requested packs and information in September and chased again, but to date have received nothing.
I’m sure they still feel there is a genuine need that they can help meet.
A number of charities shared in a newspaper appeal. They were allowed one follow-up contact to readers who responded with a donation, but only one of the six had bothered. They reached an extra 20,000 people while the other five just took the money and moved on.
It must be great to be so flush with cash to be able to just ignore offers and opportunities to raise extra funds even with little or no effort required.
Bah humbug.
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.