While walking Francisco the Dog today, I waited at a light as a suit explained to his lunch companion that "nobody is buying anything right now unless it saves them money." "Too true," thought I. And then it hit me. That's the whole pitch right there for paying NOW for an Aiki Extensions administration. All it needs is clear and compelling evidence to explain it to people who don't look at our history and financial records on a daily basis, in other words, everybody but me. Here we go.
Creating and sustaining projects from which vulnerable people benefit costs an ad hoc network more money (not to mention the strain on good will and donor exhaustion) than the same projects would with a professional administration. Straight up. Let the current attempts to establish a dedicated office fail and you pay way more going forward.
Sorry to expose "industry secrets" but the cycle goes something like this:
- define/realize a need (Ação Harmonia Brasil, Awassa Peace Dojo, soon Warriors for Peace Philippines and Lua Branca in Colombia, Peace Dojos International, etc.)
- ramp up #1: grab and begin training volunteers, start scrounging for cash, make promises to the potential recipient's and your network, begin learning how to work together with a different team in this particular context, etc.
- create an event or other discrete target towards which the amassed energy may be unleashed in an attempt at establishing a prototype for change
- ramp up #2: drive toward the target, building momentum as the time gets shorter, energy gets more focused, and the exposure of the need gets more widely visible and sexier
- reach the no-turning-back point and commit the reserves, if there were any
- realize it will cost more than anyone had projected and redouble fundraising with an emergency edge
- produce the event that is the intervention at the target area
- change the lives of those closest to the area such that they benefit and their expectations are lifted to hope for a new level of support
- document it as well as you can given the limited resources
- realize the financial and relational shortfalls as the energy ebbs and the clear target falls into history, spending more energy than anyone knew was even available
- "Wow. Imagine what would have been possible if we'd started planning earlier or had more money."
- discover that different decisions-makers in every camp supporting the process have different needs toward which they will continue to push despite the new complexities the change has created
- struggle with each other using less wisdom than is available
- attempt to retain a tiny reserve of personal energy by getting distance from as many conflicts as possible and smoothing over differences to be able to call the project alive and have a hope of fundraising Next Time.
- collapse and attempt to recover
- grant funds going directly to your dojo to pay for scholarships to bring in new students who otherwise couldn't train but without you charging them nothing and calling it a scholarship
- the chance for you and your students to practice and teach aikido for peace all over the world
- umbrella grants directly through your group to projects you know your area needs to help the kids there have a stronger chance of making it to adulthood sane
- a lasting core of qualified organizers and well managed, educated volunteers
- reliable cash sources from which we ask small, regular contributions to begin new projects
- kept promises to potential recipient's of support - for the long term
- institutional memory of how to work together in particular contexts
- dedicated online infrastructure that is ready 24x7 to help you communicate and collaborate
- discrete targets and replicable curricula and prototypes for peaceful change
- long-view momentum and continual public exposure for your favorite local and international projects
- reserves to commit, without selling panic in response to emergencies
- changed lives that benefit from lifted expectations, new levels of support, that continue for generations
- visible documentation of your work in a community of support that speaks your language and can and will tell others and back you up
- practicing what we preach internally and with decisions-makers in every camp supporting our process, so that responding well to naturally different needs is trained into our staff, membership, and work at every level
- responsible preparation to meet new complexities, especially arising from the change we create, almost as though we are martial artists
- establishing maai with any conflict that arises, honoring differences, and calling a project alive only when it continues giving good gifts to everyone involved
- celebration, rest, and natural recovery, training across organizational affiliations and political borders, and a global Community the like of which few have ever seen before.
- regular, well maintained books showing a consistent cash flow to back-up the assumption that the service providing organization will survive
- involved (fund raising and contributing) Board with the necessary relationships and expertise
- engaged constituency (in our case an involved membership)
- projects that impact people in need all the while documenting a beneficial difference in a way that almost anybody can understand
- Blow off the work and put your resources elsewhere
- Perpetuate the ad hoc feel and the fight-or-flight cycle of exhaustion
- Help pay the rest of the bill for a real administration with your membership dollars before the money keeping the offer on the table is gone (December 15, 2008)
Labels: aikiextensions, appeal, fundraising, nonprofit
| posted by Unknown @ 10/07/2008 03:26:00 PM
