The Extreme Fundraising Blog

I love the emails I’ve gotten from development professionals sharing some of their follies. Here are a couple involving direct mail:

“Well, now I remember a time when I used the word ‘erotic’ when I meant ‘erratic.’ Luckily not in a situation when it could do any damage!”

Jenny Hansell
Executive Director
North East Community Center

“Probably the worst I can remember was in a mailing, when I learned the word public does not show up on spell check if you leave out the ‘l.’”

Denise Marhoefer
Miracles of Hope Network

We’ve all been there, haven’t we? We work on a letter. Read it over. And over. Edit it again and again. Finally we mail it. Then, when we get our own copy in the mail and see mistakes like Jenny or Denise mention above!

Two things we can learn from this:

1. Spell-check is not the same as proof-reading, and
2. I’ve heard we’re “spoiled” after we’ve read a letter more than three times. After that, we need to get someone that hasn’t even seen the letter to read it.

If you’ve ever done this, isn’t it embarrassing how many mistakes you’ve missed?

The next seminar in my Fundraising Institute is Keep the Plates Spinning: Time Management and Goal Setting in a Small Office. Time management and goal setting is one of my favorite topics! You’ll leave with some elegantly simple tools to help you decide what to focus on and how to effectively communicate that to your boss or board.

For more information, go to http://cmcc.edu/training/NonprofitFundraisingSeries.htm

There are dozens of personality trait assessments on the market. I highly recommend you check out some form of the D-I-S-C version. It’s simple, easy to learn, easy to remember, and incredibly helpful in dealing with people—donors, staff, even family.

My favorite provider of DiSC assessments is Personality Insights at http://www.personality-insights.com. They make learning this format fun! Go to their store and look in the “profile” section for the “Adult Profile Assessment.” For about $10, you can get your own self-scoring DiSC assessment.

This is a great tool for teams and boards too.

Today’s fundraising mistake could have happened to any of us. My thanks to Stephen Nill, founder and CEO of CharityChannel.com for submitting it:

I was meeting with an elderly lady, 89 years old, who had around 20 cats in her home and around her property. She was contemplating a very large gift to an organization for which I was consulting as a planned giving officer.

The conversation was going very well. Then, she asked how to go about making a planned gift. For reasons that are now lost in the fog of time, I said, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

You don’t want to know what happened next. It was ugly. Really, really ugly.

I couldn’t stop laughing when Steve sent this to me! How many times have we wished we could take back something we’ve said?

It goes without saying that we need to “watch our phraseology” as Mayor Shin in The Music Man exhorts. But isn’t it somewhat reassuring that none of us wins them all?

By the way, if you haven’t checked out CharityChannel.com or CharityUniversity.com, take a minute now to do it. These sites are treasure troves for fundraisers!