Monday, January 01, 2007
This is not about CHARITY
If you want charity, my advice is to go to a welfare organisation. They probably won't give you $60,000. But they won't make you work or it. On the other hand, you'll have to work very hard to make an adoption program work. We believe we will have put in at least 1000 man-hours between us to earn that figure. $60 an hour is not bad pay. But it's the toughest work any of us has ever done.
But surely all we had to do was sit there and count the money as it came in? Wrong. Fundraising, especially with NO BUDGET, is very difficult. 1. First we had to come up with the idea. (Brilliant ideas always seem so obvious after they've been had.) 2. Then we had to build the website and the payment system, with no expert technical advice, all with free software found on the Net. 3. Next we had to get the media interested. 4. Then we had to deliver to each donor a personalised recognition package. (Everyone wanted them before Christmas!) 5. On top of that we had many 'customer service' calls to field. ("Where's my certificate?") The media were calling day and night. Throughout all this we were still running a farm in drought. 6. And then the visitors started to arrive...
Are you still with me? Happy to proceed? Then we'll take everything in order.
But surely all we had to do was sit there and count the money as it came in? Wrong. Fundraising, especially with NO BUDGET, is very difficult. 1. First we had to come up with the idea. (Brilliant ideas always seem so obvious after they've been had.) 2. Then we had to build the website and the payment system, with no expert technical advice, all with free software found on the Net. 3. Next we had to get the media interested. 4. Then we had to deliver to each donor a personalised recognition package. (Everyone wanted them before Christmas!) 5. On top of that we had many 'customer service' calls to field. ("Where's my certificate?") The media were calling day and night. Throughout all this we were still running a farm in drought. 6. And then the visitors started to arrive...
Are you still with me? Happy to proceed? Then we'll take everything in order.
