Badminton fundraiser for the Ann Arbor Film Festival
Fundraising Gets Creative
A poor economy and cuts in state funding for the arts have forced non-profit organizations to get creative with their fundraising.
by Jennifer Guerra
(2008-04-17) Once upon a time, Michigan had the 4th highest arts funding in the nation. And once upon a time wasn't even that long ago. It was 2001. But as of last year, the state's per capita arts funding has dropped to 44th in the nation. Michigan Radio's Jennifer Guerra reports that, in order to survive, non-profit arts organizations are now counting on less money from the state...and on more money from YOU.
What do you get when you cross badminton, roller derby girls and men dressed up in giant animal costumes? Well, you get the latest fundraising stunt by the Ann Arbor Film Festival's Christen McArdle!
"I don't suggest everyone do this at all," says McArdle. "But put your money where your mouth is! We care about this thing so much that yes I will get in a giant animal costume in public and play badminton or whatever."
And it worked! So did McArdle's other fundraising stunt. The one where she promised that if the festival raised $75,000, she would attempt to kidnap comedian Jon Stewart, get him to write a haiku, and read it on the air on the Daily Show.
McArdle says the kidnapping is still a work in progress...but the fundraising isn't. The festival managed to raise the $75,000 it needed from individual donors.
In a class at Eastern Michigan University, Susan Badger Booth teaches her Arts Management students how to ask for money from individual donors. Booth uses McArdle's haiku stunt as a model. And she encourages her grad students to do what McArdle did: fundraise creatively.
"For the arts," says Booth, "it's a beautiful metaphor because we are creative anyway in the arts. And we need to take what we do in our programs and translate that into how we raise our contributed dollars. And I see that happening all over."
Like at the Neutral Zone – a non-profit teen center in Ann Arbor. Amy Milligan heads up development for the center. She says silent auctions and fancy black tie dinners at $200 a pop have their place in the fundraising world. But the reality is only a small group of older, wealthy donors can afford to go to those events. And that small pool is quickly shrinking, thanks the state's poor economy.
And with so many non-profits competing for fewer and fewer government dollars, she says non-profits need to focus on raising money from younger donors. Maybe the easiest way to do that is online.
"And the reliance on those small gifts," continues Milligan. "$10 a month, $5 a month, $5 a year, whatever it is, that can turn into a really broad, reliable, grassroots base of support that can keep your doors open for a long time."
But remember what Christen McArdle of the Ann Arbor Film Festival said: "I don't suggest that everyone do this at all!"
Grass root campaigns and badminton games between roller derby girls and men dressed up in giant animal costumes aren't for everyone.
Janelle Mahlmann is program coordinator for the Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids. Mahlmann says most of the non-profits she works with are pretty traditional – like the ballet and the symphony. So the fundraising tactics they employ are traditional: focus on major donors, appeals to corporations, and direct mail campaigns.
Mahlmann did admit that there is one new tactic they've been using.
"Our development director spoke with a donor," says Mahlmann, "who thought it was too bad that the state had pulled back on its funding but that because it had happened, it was up to donors to step up and increase their donations and continue to give."
Mahlmann now uses that story in her letters to potential donors. And she says, so far...it's worked! Being up front about the cuts in state funding has led to more donations from individuals.
Maybe it's true what they say: honesty really is the best policy. And when mixed with a little creativity, it can also be the best fundraising policy.
