This week I'm updating a donor care seminar and working on two messages to the general public. And I'm reminded once again: Everyone needs a fundraising litmus test.
My girlfriend is my fundraising litmus test.
She is the most loving, giving, generous and beautiful person I have ever met.
When I told her I wanted to write a charity in to my will she told me to "F*ck off."
Presumably she knows she's going to outlive me, and wants complete control of our money when I die or she kills me. More than that, I believe she wants our son to get everything. She probably doesn't take me seriously either: I requested that her sister receives €50 upon my death on the condition that she spend a night in a haunted mansion.
Today, I wrote the phrase "I encourage you as a potential donor..." and she pulled me up on it.
Firstly, because I keep forgetting to use plain English (which really is a skill).
But mainly because I used the word 'donor'. She said "What member of the public knows that they are a ‘donor’? – that’s a Fundraising term – if I hear donor I think of blood donor or organ donor."
She IS a donor. And doesn't connect herself with the word.
I don't believe radio works. But she started crying when she heard Bee For Battens on the radio and made the decision to give.
I hate incentives. But she only signed up as a monthly giver to an animal charity because they offered free micro-chipping. She cancelled a few years later because she 'couldn't be arsed' and 'wasn't getting any updates or cute photos'.
I asked her more about that and she went on to describe a different animal charity:
"The Donkey Sanctuary send me sh*t all the time because Rachel sponsored me a donkey for a year and that was years ago. I actually must sign up to them – they are brilliant with the stuff they send. They give proper updates and loads of photos."
She donates to every single friend that asks for a donation.
She is amazing and she thinks I'm an idiot.
She is your treasured Dorothy Donor.
Who is your fundraising litmus test?
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