This exchange seems to me the core of the issue. You seem to expect “your” organization to be as important to friends and family as it is to you. I don’t see how that can ever be true.
Also, I strongly advise you not to discuss this directly with friends and family any more, or you will find them becoming more and more distant from you, and reluctant to spend time with you. Nobody wants to be put in the position that you put your friend in, not ever. For one thing, you will not hear the truth, which is probably as simple as “I didn’t want to.”
As far as getting better results from your monetary appeals, you’ve had some good advice from a professional or two in this thread. My personal advice is keep it professional, get more training from professionals in this field, and leave your poor loved ones alone.
As far as money going into a black hole the people I mentioned in my post know my organization, have been to my camp, have seen firsthand the benefits their small contribution would make.
Since you know why they are not contributing, and you know what they contribute to other causes, and you know that your cause supersedes other causes they might be interested in I am not seeing any room for debate here.
I guess I have a couple of opinions on it….and this is absolutely just me. I donate small amounts to other causes, where the donation really doesn’t affect me….its not an inconvenience so its easy to do. Larger donations or donations to other organizations become an inconvenience so I’m not likely to do it.
A second thought, is that I’m still affected by long term generational economic hardship as well as severe bouts of acute personal economic hardship. I’m very reluctant and its difficult for me to loosen the purse strings. (Think Scarlet O’Hare: “As god as my witness, I’ll never be hungry again”)
Lastly; I plan on not being a burden to anyone so I don’t have to look to others for my final care. Any left over money will go to my own charity that I plan on setting up.
These are just my thoughts based on my own experience for better or worse. This is likely why I won’t donate to your charity or any others.
Oh…I just forgot another last thought. You may be looking to the wrong demographic for your donations. You should hit up REI, outdoor stores, Sierra Club, NGO’s, government groups dedicated to the outdoor activities.
That’s cool. It likely comes down to different people feeling differently about charitable giving - both on the asking and the giving ends.
For me, it would depend on several factors: the nature of the relationship; how the request was presented; whether it was repeated; possibly whether I thought the organization/activity worthwhile…
A lot of people like to say giving - and other aspects of relationships - ought not be “transactional.” But I think there is a transactional aspect of many relationships. For example, if you are ALWAYS short on case, I may think of you as a mooch, and adjust my opinion of you somewhat. If you are repeatedly hitting me up for cash - for whatever reason, if I have not indicated a desire to provide the cash, that will also affect my opinion of you and our relationship.
Personally, I’m not favorably impressed by “giving days” or broad on-line appeals - from friends or strangers. And someone following up would make me less favorably disposed.
I’ll put it another way, I have had workplace charity events from former employers. Outstanding local charities were involved. I will not do a charitable donation through work in any circumstance. Some people may feel that way about friends.
I worked for them for many years. Let’s just say that I only give money to grassroots organizations and never to Big Conservation.
The main reason that I don’t give to many causes is that I have three charities that I regularly support. I like the long-term relationship. But if a friend asked me personally to contribute to the organization that they were running, I would absolutely give, at least that one time.
As it happens, today I just made a donation to the charity for which my friend is the Chairwoman of the Board.
I’m sorry to hear that. Can you provide any more insight other than the fact they are big?
They get excellent reviews on Charity Navigator (which is something I always check before donating to an organization).
I’ve always felt that large charities are more likely to be under close scrutiny, both internally and externally.
Conversely, I generally think that small “grassroots” organizations are more likely to be dominated by a single person with a cause, and they may or may not be on the up and up…like if the founder gets disillusioned with the cause or gets into financial difficulty and starts pocketing or diverting the donations. A small organization is less likely to have checks and balances to prevent this, IMHO.
I can see donating to charities run by friends if you’re really wealth–that’s part of being in that circle–but not really if you’re in a typical financial situation. Most regular people would only be able to make a modest donation to your charity anyway. Friends donating wouldn’t be enough to make a significant difference. Maybe the donations from friends would be enough to pay for some meals on a single trip. I would guess the bulk of the income will have to come from a few large corporate donors and lots and lots of small donations. The amount that comes from friends seems like it would be just a tiny fraction of the total income of the charity.
I’ll participate in fundraisers for kids of my friends. Raising money sucks for everyone involved and I’ll help end the process sooner by spending a few bucks on whatever crap they are using as a proxy for donations. But I’m not so keen on having my friends directly ask for donations for their pet causes. I would feel that would change the nature of our relationship. I wouldn’t want to feel like they see me as a source of funds. It’s kind of like when you have a friend join an MLM. Suddenly they’re all buddy-buddy with you trying to get you to sign up to be in their downline. I don’t mind if they share the request for donations on social media. People can donate if they feel like. But I wouldn’t want any kind of followup asking why I didn’t like their post, didn’t share their post, or not donate to their cause.
As a nonprofit development professional I have to say it’s pretty hard to get away with fraud or money mismanagement, especially if you’re receiving federal funds. A lot of people have unrealistic expectations about how much of their money should go to direct program expenses, as if staffing and overhead aren’t any less critical to providing services. A lot of people also seem to think nonprofit staff should subsist on poverty wages (as many do) because they consistently underestimate the education level, skill set and intelligence needed to effectively run a nonprofit - not to mention tenacity! One might think “all my money’s going to marketing” without putting together that this very marketing drives markedly increased donor revenue which overwhelmingly funds services to those in need. It has to fund those services, because there are laws governing what non-profits are allowed to do with their funds, and they are overseen by a board of directors whose primary responsibility is to provide oversight of that process.
Does it fail sometimes? Yes, but not often.
Whether CEOs should be drawing million dollar salaries or whatever is another issue, but it affects only a very small number of non-profits. My feeling about that is that the richer you are, the more donations you can solicit from your rich-person network, thus the more revenue for services. I could probably be argued out of it, though.
I do suggest people vett their organizations. You’re allowed to ask them what they do with their money, and should. But try to remember you may not have the full picture. As someone who does this professionally, I have a strong grasp of appropriate expenses for my organization and perhaps organizations like mine, with roughly the same budget, but I wouldn’t extrapolate that to all service organizations because budgetary needs for different kinds of services can get very complex.
This is why it’s an unmitigated disaster for DOGE to require federal budget justifications on top of the already approved budget when they have no subject matter expertise or experience or knowledge about what it takes to run a nonprofit, much less a nonprofit serving victims of crime (in my case.)
Let’s be honest, it’s not really an equal consent kind of situation. If I really value your friendship, and you ask me for money, if I say no, I’m going to feel like a bad friend, perhaps even an ungrateful one. So I’ll probably say yes out of obligation OR feel like shit for saying no, and neither of those things are a great basis for a friendship.
ETA: I just want to clarify that the reason it’s harder if you are federally funded to commit fraud or mismanage funds is that means the entire organization is regularly audited from tip to tail, from accounting practices, to procurement policies, to facility inspections, to division of management responsibilities to reduce the likelihood of fraud. Also, the whistleblower policies make it crazy lucrative to rat out your fraudulent coworkers. You usually get a huge cut of the federal grant money once it’s rescinded.
I’m another one who would look badly on a friend hitting me up for their pet cause, mainly based on that
It would strike me as unseemly. Even getting hit up as a sponsor for a relative, friend, or co-worker doing a cancer walk or a marathon with a fundraising team is meh. It makes my giving not an act of charity but a social obligation? And frankly the specific causes are usually not causes I’d give to otherwise in these current times. It creates awkwardness in the relationship.
My arm could be twisted maybe, but I’d resent it.
Would the asker be willing to donate equal amounts to each of those individuals’ favorite cause when asked too? Or do they expect a one way giving: their preferred cause gets cash but not the others’ preferred causes?
For the record, I have regular ongoing donations and will do occasional on-the-spot donations (did one just yesterday). The rest of this post may make it seem like I don’t donate at sll, so I just figured I’d make that clear.
Some other reasons not really discussed yet as to why I have chosen not to donate (or chosen to donate) at various times:
Door-to-door requests or phone call requests. I will never, ever, ever give out my credit card number to a random person who has shown up at my door or who has got me on the phone. Don’t ask, it won’t happen. If I happen to have cash (incredibly rare; it’s 2025 and I work from home so don’t need it) I might buy a chocolate bar or cookies or something but I won’t give out my name and info for charities. I don’t trust you, why should I, no matter how legitimate you may seem. I understand that just giving me a brochure probably means I won’t go online and follow through, but insisting I pay you directly is a guarantee I won’t do it. Go away.
Incredibly tedious websites. I’ve abandoned an intended donation because the site didn’t just ask for basic payment info, it wanted me to create full user accounts, with confirmation email click throughs, and then logging in again to prove I was who I said I was in the account I literally just created, and then needing another email to arrive for another “one time code” and yadda yadda CLOSE WINDOW. I just don’t have the patience. Make it easy or you won’t get my money. This has improved significantly in recent years, but I’ve definitely given up in the past.
A general dislike of the whole concept of charity. Again, I do give, but I very much feel that I shouldn’t have to, because the need being addressed by the charity is kind of something I foresee as a failure of society and governments. I realize solving all the underlying problems is a monumental and maybe impossible task, but I shouldn’t be faced with 4 donation requests in the mail from homeless shelters because I feel society should be funding them adequately to begin with. So I do eventually choose one or another but I dislike the guilt about the ones I don’t donate too (are women and children more in need of support than trans youth, or youth in general, or men?), and I have walked away from the decision sometimes instead of committing at that point in time. Being badgered by any of these organizations makes it more likely I won’t give to them.
I’ll buy items being sold as fundraisers - cookies, candy, popcorn, wrapping paper. I’ll buy tickets to events being held as fundraisers. What I won’t do is donate to my sister’s pet cause (literally - it always involves cats and sometimes dogs) - in part, because I don’t like certain things about the organizations she chooses and in part because of my sister’s attitude about this charity and competing charities. Of course, I’m not going to tell her all that - I’ll just say I meant to, but I forgot. I told her once that I prefer to help humans- it didn’t go over well.