The other day I stumbled across a company that raises big bucks in peer-to-peer fundraising for elementary schools in the US.

You’ll find it at Boosterthon.com and their proposition is simple.

• They provide a fully automated peer-to-peer website where parents and kids can plug in videos and photos. The result is an easy-as-pie fundraising campaign for their school.

Check out one of their pre-programmed, easily adaptable videos here. The high quality videos come with the deal and can be easily modified by inserting photos from the user’s library.

• The company then provides a live, fully trained, team to make the campaign a success. They claim the client gets 60-70% of the proceeds.

• Most important, they don’t leave anything to chance. Forget about the ineptness of the nonprofit’s staff. They have that covered.

In short, here’s an outfit with a unique proposition: They deliver results. Not consulting BS. Not platitudes and jargon. Not the usual “I’m-too-busy-and-in-a-meeting” excuses. Just results. As in money. Thank you.

As I viewed their website it got me thinking. Most of the peer-to-peer offerings present in the nonprofit market deliver only one thing: technology. And some pretty clumsy and old-fashioned technology at that.

And frankly, most of the available  technology doesn’t get you all that far without a lot of additional work and lots of additional investment.

Of course the major vendors of peer-to-peer will disagree, citing statistic after statistic. None of those statistics take into account the hours and hours of volunteer time, frustration and all the other nonsense that goes into building a truly successful peer-to-peer event.

So, could something that works for 5 and 7 year olds work for the rest of us.

I doubt it.

Why not?

Certainly not because the technology and automation aren’t there, but because our mindsets are simply too reluctant to accept the simple over the complex.

As I viewed the ease of setting up a site and a program for my grandkids’ school I visualized what would be happening if a ‘big peoples’ organization were viewing all this:

• “This is far too simple for us to use.”

After all, using something as simple and easy as this requires no meetings, let alone multiple meetings…no webmaster…no budget and board approval.

Clearly those missing factors of organizational paralysis doom it from the start.

• “Clearly this pre-canned utility is off-brand.”

Or, to put it more accurately, “It will first have to be checked for brand integrity.” More meetings, more internal debate and discussion.

• “The video seems extraordinarily long to me.”

I can just hear the senior slug at the meeting pulling back from the table and pronouncing that “clearly the video should be cut to 30 seconds; 45 seconds max.” And so the idea is lost. Dead. Never even attempted.

I’m sure there are more shortcomings, but I’ll let your imagination and experience come up with a list of why the simple and workable is never good enough to put to work immediately.

Meanwhile we’ll let the flexible, innovate mindset of children run circles around us.

Roger