Permit me a personal essay, please.

The reason your 401(k) is turning into a 101(k) is because politicians don’t understand numbers. Numbers that reflect the reality of too much bank leverage … too much spending … too little revenue. This has nothing to do with ideology. It’s just math.

‘Innumerate’ is the term for folks who simply don’t understand, or more probably, refuse to understand or be bothered by math. For them ‘arithmetic’ is a four-syllable word.

And that’s one of the main reasons why not only nations are going bust, but the bottom lines of nonprofit organization after organization are falling short. No longer does the ‘old math’ of acquiring cheap donors and simply replacing lost donors with more cheap new donors apply.

Ask most fundraisers what are the payback periods for their acquisition programs … or their retention rates … or heaven forbid, the Lifetime Value of  new donors. You might as well be asking a cow to review Mozart’s 41^st Symphony.

‘Acquisition’ and ‘Retention’ are acknowledged as the two major problems in direct response fundraising. They’re not two problems; simply the same problem on two sides of a coin. In brief: if you don’t hold on to new donors, then the cost of acquiring them in the first place grows higher and higher.

87% of the fundraisers I know can read. Less than 30% can count. We have to change this or the profession is doomed.

I’m glad I had an old-fashioned liberal arts education because, sometimes against my will, I was forced to appreciate the beauty of literature, history, language and yes, mathematics.

For years I blithely enjoyed my exalted status as a winning copywriter, smiling down on the analysts. But I came to realize that it was my job not only to motivate, but to count. As in, count the results and make sure they made economic sense beyond the tinsel tone of gold medals.

I  sure don’t want to turn back the clock and wish the good old days will return, ‘cause they won’t. For the life of me, I wish I had a ready solution. Something simple like requiring fundraisers to pass a math test, or requiring Excel operators to pass a thinking test. Or CEOs a creative test. But, I don’t.

What I do know is that too many nonprofit fundraisers, CEOs, communications managers and boards are like the politicians of Europe and the U.S.  As the economies drop into the gloom they simply refuse to read, heed and truly understand the numbers.

If acquisition and retention suck, believe me the numbers will show you what to do about it. My Dickinson College liberal arts education taught me how to not only write copy, but to measure its results and change accordingly.

Change is hard. Not only in the political circles of Greece and Italy and in Washington, D.C. You and I see it every day: copywriters who cling to ‘creativity’ while ignoring the arithmetic realities of costs and returns … development directors who blame it all on the consultants … consultants who hold the development directors in contempt.

Agitator editors who blame it on everyone.

Ironically, the degradation is occuring at the same time that a whole new generation of techniques, models and other math-based analytic tools have been developed. They have the potential to save us from ourselves.

But like the politicians of nations in decline, we ignore them.

Thoughts? Please.

Roger