Tragic Windfall?
Is there such a thing? Or just an oxymoron?
I’m thinking about the first Trump budget.
Here is a ‘plan’ that would rip to shreds our social safety net; our commitment to affordable, accessible health care; and our protection of the environment, food safety and much more that we expect from government. While enlarging tax breaks for the wealthiest in the nation.
The political backlash this budget stirs will generate another avalanche of donations to those nonprofits on the front line delivering services and advocating against sheer idiocy.
That, of course, is the tragic windfall.
As fundraisers, are we ready to sustain the giving that will occur?
Both in the sense of communicating with genuine empathy combined with firm determination to defend what’s equitable, just and essential … and with fundraising follow-through that keeps that giving spirit — now needed more than ever — alive?
Failing to do so would represent a double tragedy.
Tom
One response to “Tragic Windfall?”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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Tom, I believe your concern about the “spirit of giving” is very well placed. To my eye, many of the appeals of those causes advocating against the current political agenda are beginning to become strident and very negative — a switch to “giving against” rather than “in support of”. As a fundraiser, I don’t see this as a position that is sustainable in the long term.