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How Not To Get Money From Steven Spielberg and Angelina Jolie

by Ruth Ann Harnisch on 02/02/10 at 1:11 am

Day 33

Is this work, if I write about a fundraising crime?

I was actually reading a showbiz publication,  Hollywood stuff, and wound up reading the case study of a philanthropy in crisis. 

That link takes you to a news story about a fundraiser that the organizers admit they threw together in less than two weeks, and yet they have the audacity to call out, by name, Steven Spielberg and Angelina Jolie for not being accounted for at this event.  It would probably take two weeks to get a message to either of them, much less engage their money machinery to produce a contribution.  And yet they are being publicly criticized for failure to respond to a call they may never have heard.

I can’t tell you how many fundraising pitches I’ve received, or ideas other people have for nonprofit work, containing a list of celebrities or high-profile wealth holders who “should” give to that charity. 

Who wants to be told what they “should” do with their own money?  Does anyone really think public shaming is the way to initiate a relationship with a donor?  Oops.  That is starting to sound more like “work” and less like “imagining how people try to get to Angelina Jolie.”

One of  the greatest joys of my sabbatical so far  has been the freedom from any feeling of “should” and detachment from other people’s expectations.

I see now that I can and must take this freedom and detachment with me at the end of the sabbatical.