The main event in fundraising last year wasn't an event at all. At least, not any event like those that fill these pages.
It was the Arkansas Community Foundation's Arkansas Gives Day in April, and it raised about $2 million over 12 hours for 361 Arkansas charities. Two million is exactly $1 million more than the foundation's goal.
Is that big?
It's incredible!
Republican-nominee-Donald-Trump incredible?
No. C'mon.
Last month, one of the architects (some would say the architect), Sarah Kinser, reflected on that day for a group of fundraisers in an anteroom at Embassy Suites. She began her slide show with a photo of Community Foundation chief Heather Larkin pumping her fist in the air. "It was a really exciting moment. It was about 7:30 on Arkansas Gives Day last year ... [and] at this point it was pretty clear, we were closing in on $2 million."
They crushed $1 million and set the goal April 7 at, wow, $4 million. That's for a four-fold increase over expectations this time last year. "I don't think it will be easy," Kinser says, but they have quite a few more participating charities this time around -- about 140, for a total of about 500 -- and quite a bit more confidence.
I'm tempted to say "now everyone wants a piece," but really, everyone got a piece. There weren't too many nonprofits not involved in Arkansas Gives Day, though Heifer International and the Arkansas Arts Center are two high-profile converts.
So here are some off-the-top winners and losers on this thing.
Say, why you gotta make winners and losers outta this?
Social scientists tell me Americans prefer this duality.
WINNERS
• YOUNG PEOPLE Notice I didn't say millennials. By "young" I really mean people of all ages who can't boast a long history of charitable giving, or charitable group membership, or board membership and event chairmanships.
Young people aren't winners because presumably they like any kind of commerce that lives exclusively online. Young people are winners because this is a small-donation experience. It's easy to self-promote your giving on social media. By donating, you're adding your name to the donor rolls of your chosen nonprofit, and now development directors will count you among their support network.
That should feel good. It should feel inclusive, and if your nonprofit is kind of hip and active and network-y, who knows if it won't mean romance or employment down the road.
• CREDIT CARDS Oh, those nasty card companies are makin' BANK on this deal. The average credit card transaction fee is 3 percent. On $2 million, that was $60,000. So why not just write a check? Next ....
• LEADER BOARDS Without question the thing that makes Arkansas Gives a success is the gamified giving experience. That's why the foundation doesn't take checks -- checks can't instantly count for a nonprofit's leader board tally and therefore its standing in the horse race.
"I really didn't know it was going to be that big of a deal," Kinser said, "until the day of the event -- on the home page we have the tally board that shows what's come in. We have it projected on the wall at headquarters, disco ball flashing. I kept getting text messages from friends all day long that were saying, 'I'm addicted to looking at this leader board! I keep hitting refresh all day long.' Super fun, right? I had no idea it was going to work out like that."
• MONEY FOR NOTHING There's money on the table here for all participating charities, and big bonuses for the highest-performing ones. In all, the Community Foundation is putting up $400,000 of its own, and First Security Bank is throwing in an additional $60,000 in prize money.
And what are the prizes? Bonuses go to the charities that raise the most and, separately, register the most donors, in each of three tiers -- big, medium and small nonprofits.
The Community Foundation's $400,000, meanwhile, pretty much gets divided among all participating charities based on performance. That is, if a single charity raises 1 percent of the day's total, they'll get a $4,000 bonus from the Community Foundation.
LOSERS
All right, so I don't have any real "losers." Not really, but I'm sure the concerns of some development directors prior to last year's Arkansas Gives are still relevant.
• FUTURE FUNDRAISING The suspicion is that a day like Arkansas Gives siphons money from regularly scheduled, in-house fundraising (think direct-appeal mail campaigns). This is the complaint against the national #GivingTuesday social media campaign that drops right smack in the middle of end-of-year direct-appeal mailers. That's when charities go directly to past donors and say, "We need ya."
There's another fear at work here, too. What if a charity conspicuously under-performs? Remember the leader board, the "horse race"? What if a little nonprofit mobilizes and surges and embarrasses a big one?
Arkansas Gives takes fundraising public.
• APP LOVERS And I don't mean the kind that occasionally arrive tableside as "samplers."
Is a smartphone app in the future? No, says Kinser, but the site is fully operational from any mobile device.
So this is one enterprise that just won't have an app. A hashtag? No doubt. #ArkansasGives. A handle? @ArkansasGives. A site? ArkansasGives.org.
And me?
bampezzan@arkansasonline.com
High Profile on 02/28/2016