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!
