Charity Road Shows

Good Events in a “Bad” Economy: The Blame Game

I had a conversation recently with an old friend, commiserating about how far the toteboard for the 2008 edition of an annual fundraiser had fallen compared to years gone by, while listening to him recount the spin that The Powers That Be (TPTB) had put on the entire thing. The event in question raised over $600,000 - certainly nothing to sneeze at; quite the contrary, achievements like those are the kind that make people around the country stand up, take notice, and send spies to figure out how you do what you do. It’s humbling.
My friend, however, recalled the days when the same event, held on the same station in the same time frame, raised just shy of a million dollars.

The mantra coming from TPTB was one that’s likely familiar to many: It’s the economy, stupid. I hear a lot of charitable organizations, and for-profit companies as well, spinning things that way lately. The media is awash in doom-and-gloom stories about our lousy economy, just as they were when most of the US economic indicators were at their highest levels in history. “Bad economy” stories are easy pickings when journalists are as lazy as their readers.

The unfortunate hole in the story from TPTB, however, was that near-million-dollar year. It was before the Spring of 2002 when this particular event had its watershed year, and shattered all expectations.

Prior to the Spring of 2002, the airlines were in turmoil, the financial capital of the world lay largely in ruins, and a whole pile of non-profits all over the country took a collective kick in the groin, because so many people’s money had just gone to things like The Tribute To Heroes concert on television (you remember, the one that started with a bang - Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen - and ended with a whimper - Willie Nelson), and a dizzying array of other 9-11 related charities.

This economy is worse? That’s interesting - Jerry Lewis isn’t complaining about the economy. Just seven months ago, Jerry beat his all-time record for the Labor Day telethon for Muscular Dystrophy. Jerry is also walking and talking proof that some events never get tired if they’re done right.

With my friend’s event, however, something about the impact of the event changed, plain and simple. It’s unlikely that the cause lost any of its urgency - this particular charity has done an amazing job leveraging celebrity support over the past few years, and if anything is more visible now than they have ever been. So if it isn’t the economy, and it isn’t the cause, that leaves one inconvenient answer.

Blaming the economy is a convenient way of avoiding a gut-check. And it’s a gut-check we all need to take occasionally. In this case, TPTB are likely trying to prop up the spirits of a disheartened airstaff, or perhaps head off questions from anyone who dares invoke comparisons to “the old days”. By doing so, they prevent the kind of critical thinking that would allow them to rekindle the passion that made people give 50% more money to the same event just six years prior.

Every event can do better than it did the year before, regardless of the economy. Ask Jerry Lewis. Ask the majority of event-oriented fundraisers across the country, whose sole target for each year is to best the prior year’s total, even if it’s only by a dollar. However, that improvement begins with the acknowledgment that perfection hasn’t been achieved yet. Placing responsibility on the economy for an event that has lost some of its impact does nothing toward that end.

What was it my Mom used to say about pointing a finger of blame somewhere else, and the other three fingers?

–Neil Hedley

PS.  The opinion expressed above is mine.  Not the company’s.