If you're like most fundraisers, most of the funds you raise must be unrestricted, undesignated, unearmarked. Meaning your organization, usually your financial people, have sole control over where donors' dollars end up.
The lower the dollar value of your donors, the less control or say they have on this subject. Money from government or foundation sources is often highly designated. Major donors and top benefactors can tell you what they want you to do with their money. But everyday donors -- people whose checks have four digits are less -- well, they just have to trust your wisdom and be okay with the way you allocate their unrestricted gifts.
I hope you're asking why, as the Queer Ideas blog is: Why does it always have to be un-earmarked?
... with organisations like Kiva growing at a fantastic rate by offering choice over how money is allocated and what percentage is added to cover administrative costs, it might not be too long before charities have to start changing the way they work....
Donors are already getting increasing amounts of choice in how they give to the causes they care about. And it's those charities that respond most effectively to the changing environment that are going to succeed.
We all understand the value and importance of unrestricted funds. But are we balancing that with the power of offering restricted funds?
The time when we could count on regular donors to quietly and happily provide no-questions-asked unrestricted funds is coming to an end. The "Have It Your Way" generation is entering its donor years, and they want to fund what they want to fund. And organizations like Kiva, DonorsChoose, and Global Giving are offering hyper-designated giving -- just what they want.
It's time for your money folks to step up and help you figure out how to deal with restricted funds. If they don't, you may find yourself with fewer and fewer funds -- restricted or unrestricted -- to work with.
Technorati Tag: fundraising
At Whitewater, we've been encouraging earmarked giving for some time, with the famous Water Buffalo movie marking one significant signpost along the way.
The Water Buffalo movie is the product of a donor discovering a Christmas virtual gift was not going to result in an actual water buffalo being given to an actual family in China -- so they did it themselves. And they filmed the simple, emotional story so the donors (and everyone else) were able to see the water buffalo they bought and the family whose lives were changed because of it.
The water buffalo movie showed us how good giving can be and how good (and real, and concrete, and immediate, and uncontrived) reporting back to donors can be.
The Water Buffalo Movie
http://www.t2.com/waterbuffalo/watch/water_buffalo_flash_hi.html
Earmarked giving also informed the design of the SolarAid site, where donors can give to a particular project and follow the each project's blog.
http://solar-aid.org/
Brad
Posted by: Brad Bell | 09 July 2009 at 08:12