January 7th, 2009, 2 Comments »
David Armano did a lovely thing yesterday, asking people to help out a family in need. It was, as they say, an overnight success, and he’s raised nearly $15,000. There are lots of stories to tell about this worthy effort–the power of crowd-sourcing and influence, the importance of personalizing a charity appeal and so forth.
A conversation I was having with Sean Moffitt on Twitter, however, highlighted another angle. Sean remarked that David had said that the flurry of fundraising wasn’t repeatable. I’m not sure exactly what he meant by that, but I was reminded of Flowers for Al and Don, a project I was involved with about five (Good Lord, was it been that long ago?) years ago. We raised a similar amount of money through an ad hoc (even, one might say, accidental) online campaign.
But here’s the difference: David did in two days what it took us two weeks to do.
So, I see David’s project as a story of the real-time web, and the power of microblogging services like Twitter. We’re able to compress activity into a shorter time frame, and focus attention in a way that was hard to imagine in 2004.
One other interesting observation: the payment system is pretty much exactly the same. We used PayPal for Flowers for Al and Don, and the service that David’s using, ChipIn, is just a kind of widgety layer on top of PayPal. As far as I can tell (and I’m certainly no expert), we’ve really gotten nowhere with micropayments or, I don’t know, web-based accounts which might further streamline this kind of project.
David’s project reminded me that I need to wrap up my little Kiva loan project. More on that next week.
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November 20th, 2008, 8 Comments »
The Belfry Theatre is, in my view, the best producer of mainstream theatre in the province. They’re more consistent than The Arts Club or The Vancouver Playhouse, and yet they take more risks with the play choices.
Yesterday I got a media release from the Belfry, summarizing their AGM and reporting on their last year’s work. It reminded me that they’re also currently one of the most financially stable and successful theatres that I know of.
They have an huge subscriber base of 6700 people for a theatre that only seats 277. Their average attendance for their mainstage shows last season was a mind-boggling 92%. They recently extended their production runs from four to five weeks when many Canadian theatres are reducing theirs to three.
I’ve always been an keen observer of arts funding and economics, and so was interested to see where the Belfry got its money from. And, as regular readers know, I love a chart. I produced a couple. The first shows where the Belfry’s revenue comes from:
The second shows the blue chunk of the big pie–private fundraising:
I asked Mark Dusseault at the Belfry about why ‘gaming money’, funding from BC Lottery Corporation, is under ‘private fundraising’. He explained that there were various reasons: government accounting practice, no peer review process and the way the money used to be doled out.
When gaming was originally set up we (staff and volunteers from the theatre) had to go and work the events. We spent a couple of days a year either at a bingo parlour or casino. We were, in essence, fundraising. We had to apply to participate and there was no guarantee as to how much money we would make (or lose).
I actually remember doing this once at a casino for some Vancouver theatre company.
The green slice is public money from sundry agencies: Canada Council for the Arts, CRD Arts Development and BC Cultural Services are the biggest contributors. Their entire budget is about $2.3 this year.
Where Does the Money Go?
I suppose the other question is how is that money spent?
I don’t have any great insights into these numbers. I just wanted to explore them a little, and make pretty charts. Do you have any insights?
8 Comments »
June 16th, 2008, 3 Comments »
I’m on the slow road to wellness (go away, neon phlegm, you’re needed elsewhere!). In the meantime, I wanted to mention a few good-cause projects that friends and colleagues are working on:
- Gillian is once again running for our packages. She’s participating in the Underwear Affair (caution, cheesy music ahead), a run- and walkathon for below-the-belt cancers. Think about your privates and make a donation.
- Kris has contributed some prints to the Art of Giving art exhibition and silent auction at the Orb gallery. It’s not a fundraising event per se (the event name seems a tad misleading), but 20% of the proceeds go to charity.
- Joe has assembled a wiki that is “a collection of case studies/examples of nonprofits & social change makers using popular social networks for social change.” A very useful resource if you’re in that space. The wiki is part of Joe’s preparation for the talk he’s giving in Vancouver tomorrow night.
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August 24th, 2007, 1 Comment »
Following on a theme from my Gnomedex talk, I happened upon MatchIT.ca via the Canadian Developers blog:
MatchIT helps you find skilled, professional assistance to meet your organization’s technology needs. Whether it is troubleshooting information systems or leading website design and development, IT volunteers can help Canadian charities and nonprofit organizations improve their performance and deliver better services in local communities.
Sounds like a great project, and it isn’t something I’ve seen before in Canada (though I’m sure ‘competitors’ exist, particularly on the local and regional levels). Sometimes professionals don’t necessarily want to moonlight using the same skills they apply all day, but many aren’t so picky.
When I get more time, I may offer to rewrite and restructure their home page. It’s currently pretty uninviting.
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