Yesterday, Brent Hafele of Dickerson, Bakker & Associates was featured as a fundraising expert on WABE FM, the NPR station in Atlanta, GA. The topic was Georgia Gives Day, a statewide fundraising drive for thousands of nonprofits. Listen to the full story here:
Georgia Gives Day Builds on Previous Success
There are pros and cons to a statewide day of giving, and not all nonprofits chose to participate. The station asked Brent to weigh in on the benefits and issues for organizations. “Non-profits can get lost in the shuffle,” he said, referring to the competition between agencies with similar goals. It can also be confusing to donors when a single nonprofit is asking for donations through multiple channels. Plus, online giving cuts out face-to-face contact, which Brent sees as crucial to building long-lasting fundraising relationships.
That said, Brent also had positive things to say about Georgia Gives Day. He thinks these types of events have a number of benefits, including raising awareness for the nonprofit sector as a whole, encouraging philanthropy in the public, and to a lesser extent, raising money/new donors for nonprofit agencies. In this way, it’s actually better for the nonprofit sector at large, and for the public, than it is for any individual nonprofit.
Even so, Brent thinks it’s probably still a good idea to participate in such statewide giving days. “I don’t see a major downfall.”
