Donor Season...
It is June... and it is my most hated season in the arts organisation calender. So, with the end of financial year approaching all the big orgs are doing their campaigns to their big donor support base and the general public... in a spew-worthy transparent money grab...
One case in point, I was asked to play for a donor's morning tea and then to meet with a chair sponsor... and given that I've been busy with my own ensemble and then travelling around with other groups, I wasn't able to do the original dates that were suggested... and I offered to find alternative dates. Which was accepted... with the proviso that it had to be BEFORE the 30th of June... hmmm... wonder when tax deduction receipts finish? SPEW...
And then the cringe worthy photos of children and outreach projects where the large orgs send their Z-teams and cut costs and charge high prices... but kids, donors LOVE pictures of kids... just don't tell them that their money gets offset and reallocated to director's travelling business class or a little Tesla car perk... or to expand the non-artistic workforce by 2x.... in order to chase more donations. SPEW SPEW SPEW...
... and then the cringey "authentic" mass emails... using your "real name" in an attempt to sound personal... leading to the question of "why the @$#@$ am I on your mailing list when I ticked NO NO NO".
And some of those emails are hilariously terrible... "we provide such a important blah blah blah cultural fabric to society blah blah blah... but ticket sales only account for 15 percent of our expenses, so give us money because we are important... and if you don't, you are dufus and a uneducated oaf". SPEW... and it sounds like a failing business model to me... bt in the cultural sector, the more failing you are, the more deserving of philanthropic support through the old boys and girls club?
... and the donor soirees... closed events for the handpicked few (who have money to milk...) to spend a private dinner and concert with the stars (who are paid to attend...). SPEW SPEW SPEW...
My wife and I have made a pact to never go down this route... we have passive donation portals on our website and passive buttons on our emails/programmes but we never point them out. They are there... click at your own risk! And we find that those... they come genuinely... they heard a concert they liked and donated a bit more.
... as for cultivating our donors, we write and say thank you and with a short description of what we are doing with the funds (sadly, no Tesla for us...), we ask if we can list them on our website, and then we LEAVE THEM IN PEACE!
Sure, the donor harassment works... that is how most large organisations manage to stay afloat enough to waste money on non-artistic expenses. And they are also the first to cry poor at the slightest hint of donors retreating and grants moving on... seriously, large orgs are the bane of the cultural non-profit world, they should definitely lose their taxation status after a certain size, because they only become money milking schemes.
At times, we have considered running a satire donor campaign that is so hilariously bad... but we don't really need to piss off the big guys!... but one day, we will give in to bad judgement!
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Great post! Thanks for sharing this, it was a really interesting read.
Have you ever gotten one of those mass emails where it didn't fully fill in the name so it literally says Dear insert name here, I throw those away immediately!
Unfortunately, harassment works in so many different fields... I remember when I was running a company, I bent over to people who would harass me, just to get rid of them and to never see them again... That sounds bad in so many ways, but the worst of all is that they would get their thing finished (skipping the queue), while others would have to wait their turn... That hurt the most... 😔 To keep my stress levels low, I had to do it, but it's a bad thing in the long run...
Similar to your situation... Because some other harass donors, they will have the same view of you, without even knowing you... Hopefully, that's not the case, but...
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Sounds like private schools.
Just run the satirical campaign, satire is an art form and comedians exist XD It's just something fun and different you're doing in between your usual to lighten the mood of all the less fun stuff that all organisations face, surely they understand because they don't act like that so it's not aimed at them right ;D