occasionally I volunteer to write and design money-raising appeals for small nonprofit organizations that might otherwise do it less effectively on their own — or all too often, hire outsider “experts” at fees that cut into their take substantially. charge 99¢ — or disaietrously $1.01— for every dollar they raise.
These efforts can be direct mail or e-mail, print ads or online campaigns. And they are provided in a way that teaches how to create “letters that change lives” so these small nonprodits will not need my skills more than once or twice.
If I can contribute to your organization in this way, please contact me — understanding these are necessarily limited, time-available projects developed under your direction.
I am happy to assist all kinds of groups, located anywhere in the United States, but my bias favors local over national, small over large, and direct over umbrella charities.
“One Man FOundation” was born soon after I was hired to create subscription promotions for The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Gathering information about the professional lives of likely readers led me to an Association of Fundraising Professionals conference in Boston. The session I sat in on soon had me steaming as a vendor- led presentation featured dubious “available-only-from-us” solutions — proffering myth after mistake in the guise of a seminar on how to raise money through the mail.
Because I was there to observe and not participate, I sat silent but seething — spoiling to challenge what was being asserted as exper- tise to an attentive and grateful group who had no reason to doubt, but every reason to shun, the ad- vice.
Fortunately, doing probono as a “One Man Foundation” has been a more positive response than anything I would have sputtered in anger that day. And an experience more instructive than I could know at the time.