{"id":902,"date":"2006-06-06T07:39:16","date_gmt":"2006-06-06T14:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2006\/06\/gift_or_purchase\/"},"modified":"2006-06-06T07:39:16","modified_gmt":"2006-06-06T14:39:16","slug":"gift_or_purchase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/gift_or_purchase.php","title":{"rendered":"Gift or purchase?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Arts organizations have always explored the boundary between charitable gifts and fees for services. It&#8217;s one of the inevitable struggles when you receive significant revenue from both earned and contributed sources. But if we needed a warning about violating that boundary, we have a wonderful poster child in academic athletics.<\/p>\n<p>Take, for example, the University of Wisconsin football franchise, which requires fans to contribute at a certain level in order to be considered for ticket purchases. Granted, it&#8217;s not dramatically different than offering preferred ticketing to major givers in an arts institution. But it&#8217;s a lot more sales-like and overt. Says a recent radio ad (with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.badgerband.com\/music\/onwis.html\">UW fight song<\/a> playing in the background):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><br \/>\n&#8220;One of the state&#8217;s greatest treasures is Wisconsin football at Camp Randall Stadium. While kickoff is still months away, a limited number of season tickets are available right now. That&#8217;s right, Wisconsin football season tickets could be yours. It all starts by supporting the Badger Fund. Contributors to the Badger Fund enjoy the first opportunity to request season tickets to all UW sports, including football. If you&#8217;ve ever considered season tickets, the time to act is now.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Unfortunately, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.madison.com\/tct\/mad\/topstories\/index.php?ntid=86413&#038;ntpid=0\">at least one avid fan<\/a> didn&#8217;t get the distinction between what <i>might<\/i> happen and what <i>would<\/i> happen if he made a significant gift. So he perceived his $550 contribution as a downpayment for the rights to season tickets &#8212; worthy of a refund if he didn&#8217;t get picked. The result was harsh publicity, dulled public opinion, and a more transactional perception of any donation made by anyone.<\/p>\n<p>So, certainly explore the border between a gift and a &#8221;gimme&#8221; &#8212; there are all sorts of motivations behind each financial transfer. But as stewards of your organization&#8217;s integrity, know that there <i>is<\/i> a border there, somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arts organizations have always explored the boundary between charitable gifts and fees for services. It&#8217;s one of the inevitable struggles when you receive significant revenue from both earned and contributed sources. But if we needed a warning about violating that boundary, we have a wonderful poster child in academic athletics. Take, for example, the University [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}