Is there a similarity between cable news and the way some nonprofits operate?

Tom’s Does Your Fundraising Depend on Urgency posted last week would suggest so.

In Cable News Seth Godin wonders: “What if the fear and maiaise and anger isn’t merely being reported by cable news…

“What if it’s being caused by cable news?”

Last January in Better or Worse World? I noted that “despite the stupidity and horror we’re exposed to daily I’ve come to the conclusion that humanity is actually headed in the right direction.”

For many nonprofits there’s always “urgent need” because disease, famine, war and violence are urgent matters.

But, if we go overboard on “urgency” in our messaging, mail and email — our equivalent of cable’s Breaking News — we’re not only in danger of dulling the perspective and senses of our donors, but also our own psyches.

When our mail appears to be the equivalent of the overwrought, breathless talking heads of cable news we’re really putting short-term financial goals ahead of reality.

We owe our donors ‘importance’ and ‘accomplishments’ and perspective on the gains they help make possible. Of course, at times a sense of urgency is absolutely required. But urgent, after urgent, after time-dated-respond-within-10-days messages, delivered appeal after appeal, could result in creating the vision of a world in which donors feel their support is making no difference, no progress.

Remember, thanks in no small part to the global work of NGOs and philanthropy, empirical evidence suggests the world has become ever more virtuous in the 50+ years since the 1960s.

Statistically, for example, as I noted in January:

• In 1963 the average global life expectancy was 55 years. In 2016 it’s 71 years.

• Those of us in North America have added 10 years to our life expectancy (from 68 to 78) in the last five decades. But the biggest gains have been made in India, China, Brazil and South Korea.

• We’re not only living longer; we’re living better. In 1963 the Human Development Index, the quality of life measure compiled by the United Nations, for most developed nations was 0.48. For the poorest part of the world, sub-Saharan Africa, it was 0.11. Today for the developed world it’s 0.88 and has risen to 0.51 in sub-Saharan Africa.

• Despite the horrific battle zone and crime footage on the nightly news, casualties resulting from warfare are way down, dropping from 250 deaths per million at the start of the ‘60s to fewer than 10 deaths per million currently. Although homicide rates are a bit higher than in 1963 when they were at their lowest point in 40 years, they have been on the decline since 1991 and are nearing the low levels that existed back then.

And we seem to be making progress across a wide range of fronts and categories:

• In the ‘60s, 500 of every 100,000 people on the planet died of famine. In the past 10 years the rate has dropped to 3 in 100,000.

• Here in the US, when I began my career, millions of African Americans couldn’t vote, women couldn’t get a credit card unless their husbands or parent signed for it. Neither could they get student loans and often not even scholarships. And abortion was illegal. Millions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual Americans lived in terror of being outed. Today all that has changed or is changing for the better.

• Even protection of the environment, despite the threat of climate change, is moving in the right direction. I remember when I moved to Washington, DC in the ‘60s that swimming in the Potomac River was prohibited because of the threat of hepatitis. And there was no Clean Air or Clean Water Acts, No Endangered Species Act and no Environmental Protection Agency.

Of course we need to do more. Much more.

We need to remind our donors that their  generosity does makes a difference on important issues. And sometimes the need is urgent. But, we’re not going to keep our donors or change the world by becoming cable news fundraisers.

Roger