Don’t Tell The Donor

5 Categories Of  Fundraising Offenses – Get The Feathers

By “A Fundraiser …”

In the days of early American colonies, angry mobs used to “tar and feather” individuals they thought deserved to be publicly humiliated because of perceived injustices. The technique involved vigilantes stripping the subject to the waist before pouring or painting hot tar on their chest. Loose chicken feathers were then thrown at the subject or he/she was required to roll around in them before being paraded around town.

The aim was not really to cause pain (although boiled tar does hurt), but to humiliate someone into enough shame they would decide to leave town without causing more mischief.

While I’m aware that this type of vigilante witch hunting often invoked prejudices and ignorance… and I know it wasn’t always done with a fair sense of justice… but the technique of community self regulation is an effective concept of deterrence.

I’m not talking about abiding by the principles laid out in the Asoociation of Fundraising Professionals’ Code of Ethical Principles and Standards… I’m talking about the offenses that squander donor dollars, manipulate public trust, or risk an organization’s financial security. My personal observations of poor fundraising practices typically fall into five categories that are so egregious I believe the perpetrators of offenses listed here should be subject to a symbolic “tar and feather” treatment.

5. Failing to listen to (and respect) donor communication preferences. This is the type of stuff that Jeff Brooks writes about almost daily in his Donor Power Blog. It’s the angry feedback that Marc Pitman tapped into when he posted a question to his LinkedIn account and received 42 answers in less than 8 days. This also is the rational behind the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation’s attempt at forcing groups to take part in the Commitment to Consumer Choice (CCC). If you aren’t allowing donors to opt-out of list exchange, remove their name from telemarketing campaigns, or get off your email listserve… you deserve to be covered in proverbial tar.

4. Overpaying for services. As fundraisers, we often spend a lot of money to raise needed funds. We enter into lots of contracts and agreements with outside consultants or vendors. Fundraisers who knowingly pay too much are squandering donor dollars and need to be run out of town. Sometimes these relationships are obvious “kick-backs” to friends who run for-profit agencies.

Slightly less criminal, but no less offensive are those fundraisers who sign off on exuberant bills because they like being wined and dined by their account executives. In my opinion if you are allowing your charity to be over-charged for services… you deserve to be rolled in a bed of chicken feathers.

3. Entering into risky fundraising or investment schemes that require organizations to leverage themselves for the promise of easy returns. Fundraising isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s hard work. Groups that get themselves into serious trouble are often those that were looking for the fundraising equivalent of a “get rich quick” scheme. When high profile stories make the papers they usually involve a criminal scam… but they also are made possible by lazy fundraisers entering into inadvisable agreements without prudent financial oversight.

Who can forget what John Bennett did to groups in Philadelphia? Or the CFO of the group in San Francisco who lost $3.6 million by betting on the stock market? Or the recent disaster at The Points of Light Institute?  If you are a fundraiser that is taking such risky gambles – you should be dragged around town covered in feathers and ridiculed for your terrible sense of judgment. 

2. Misrepresenting a nonprofit’s work to secure donation. After September 11th there were high profile scandals where groups solicited or accepted restricted gifts without explaining how the money might be used for other program areas. Unfortunately, not everyone seems to have learned lessons from those experiences and the entire industry still fights to clear its name.

If you are going to only talk about one specific program of your group while raising unrestricted funds you must be clear and upfront about it. If you are going to let people give restricted gifts -- you better be damn sure you are honoring those requests. And if you are lying or exaggerating to convince someone to give that gift? Well then… you deserve that proverbial tar to be extra hot.

1. Overstating revenue expectations. The worst thing any fundraiser can do is to promise to raise more than they can. In my fundraising career, I’ve known several development directors who submitted budgets which they knew weren’t going to be possible to achieve. Sometimes this is due to ignorance. While that is clearly inexcusable, it is even worse when this mistake is caused by a leader who is only interested in impressing their executive director or Board of  Directors at that time and they short-term thinkers who are only worried about their next raise or figure that their job tenure won’t last more than 2-3 more years anyway.

When fundraisers bite off more than they can chew or don’t push back against unrealistic demands placed on their numbers… inevitably actual performance falls short and dramatic staffing and/or program cuts are needed.
If you overstate your revenue goals for one of these reasons and fail to deliver --- you deserve the video of you being dragged through town covered in tar and feathers to be posted to Youtube with a viral email sent to your entire address book.