Fightin’ Words!
As reported here by Holly Hall in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Wikipedia is now conducting its annual fundraising campaign, which this year has been collaboratively designed by about 900 volunteers!
Philippe Beaudette, the Wikimedia Foundation staff member overseeing the campaign says:
“Group collaboration is the future of fund raising. Organizations are going to have to work harder for donor dollars, and the ones that will be successful will be the ones that do not involve professional fund raisers. Professional fund raisers are sometimes limited by history and afraid to think outside the box. It is going to take new creative ideas, and the best way to get that is to have a huge number of people thinking.”
Whoa! Take that, professional fundraisers!
Is this a brilliant paradigm shift … or the most frightening example of creating by committee that you’ve ever heard? Roger and I are eager to hear the views of the professional fundraising community on this one!
BTW, the Chron reports that so far this year’s Wikipedia campaign is outpacing last year’s.
Tom
P.S. Before our US readers check out for Thanksgiving, don’t forget to register for our webinar next week on mobile fundraising. The first Agitator Mobile Webinar will be held on Thursday December 2nd at 2pm eastern. Registration is free to Agitator readers.
9 responses to “Fightin’ Words!”
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Interesting. It’s been my experience that “group collaboration” typically kills any semblance of “creative ideas.”
Thanks for getting my blood boiling this morning Tom. It doesn’t take too much figuring to guess why there are people out there like Philippe who think that about our profession. Anyhow, nothing like reading something to give you a little get up and go at the start of your day. My expanded thoughts lie here: http://blog.agentsofgood.org/2010/11/23/re-fightin%E2%80%99-words/
Perhaps someone should inform them that most “professional fundraisers” spend their time working with and managing volunteers who open doors, solicit funds, have input into key messaging… as well as every other aspect of the organization.
I’m in the process of organizing a brainstorming committee of volunteers to collaborate on a variety of key messaging and fundraising initiatives. It’s a great way to inspire creativity, engage volunteers and create a sense of ownership amongst those most committed to the organization.
That said – they are correct when they state that many fundraisers are paralyzed by a rigid adherence to history, while being petrified of trying new things and… failing once in awhile.
I hope they succeed. I also hope they educate themselves about what real professional fundraisers do… and how they do it.
I just wished that once a person has donated they would be able to remove those banners and emails. On second thought…maybe hire some one who knows.
If we had a dollar donation for every time someone predicts the demise of professional fundraising, those revenues would go a whole lot further towards putting us out of business than these prognosticators will.
The volunteers are the players while professional fundraisers are the conductors. We need all of us to create the music.
It seems like a good model for something that came about in the way Wikipedia did. I don’t see that “organic” model necessarily translating to every cause out there. Blanket statements like that kind of crack me up – it makes me think that perhaps that person is pretty young and hasn’t been doing this kind of work very long. But good luck to them – I use Wikipedia a lot and hope they do well. Back to the obsolete work that I apparently uselessly pursue every day 🙂
Not to take anything away from a strong campaign, but for those organisations without 400milllion viewers per month to extensively test their campaign on, then they’ll need to rely on a bit of knowledge so that they can set a strong control to tun their limited tests against.
It seems that their control is the one that’s performing best, which does rather beg the question, what have the 900 collaborators been creating?
Further thoughts>> http://mikemuses.posterous.com/fundraisers-days-are-numbered
Better late on Wikipedia fundraising than never. I gave to their current campaign. Wales’ campaign, if it merits that title, is just to ask the enthusiasts to chip in. I got an automated thank you, declined a tax receipt as I am taxed in Britain.
WP continually repeats the ‘give us money’ Wales banner message each time go to the site. It does not recognise that I’ve given and there is no Wp log in but they MUST know who I am surely?. There has been no further communication with me. I wonder if in 2011 they will slectively target the prior year givers? I’d have been happy to sign up for a E5/month direct debit. No option offered by WP. So much for their assertion that professional fundraisers are not needed. Dumb. So much goodwill. So little skil.