{"id":657,"date":"2011-11-02T10:00:30","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T14:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=657"},"modified":"2011-11-02T10:00:30","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T14:00:30","slug":"arts-2-0-40k-x-251m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/11\/arts-2-0-40k-x-251m\/","title":{"rendered":"Arts 2.0: 40k x $25=$1M"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"At least twenty years ago I began sharing this formula with students in fundraising classes. (Clearly, we were all math whizzes!) The point was (and is), of course, that a large number of small contributions is just as much $1 million as is a single contribution of that amount. I was concerned way back then about the proliferation of not-for-profit organizations, the skyrocketing costs of labor intensive industries, and the simple math of how many extremely wealthy people there were relative to the need. It seemed to me that real attention had to be paid to alternative models of how to fund 501(c)(3)’s.<\/p>\n

When I would talk to practitioners about it, they would smile, pat the academic on the head, and politely (some of the time) try to explain to me that the administrative demands of soliciting 40,000 new contributions were unmanageable in those pre-Internet (and largely pre-computer) days. They were right on the practicalities. . . . And I was right on the need for re-thinking the model.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to today. The only piece of my analysis that is not even more obvious now than it was then may be the part about the number of wealthy people. We all know about the incredible rise in income disparity. But even if the number of multi-millionaires had increased enough to keep pace with the growth of the not-for-profit sector (which it has not), the increasingly high cost of labor intensive enterprises compared to industries that can mechanize (economists call this situation productivity lag) makes the big donor model (as a primary focus) untenable in the long term.<\/p>\n

In an earlier post (Arts 2.0: The Power to Give<\/a>), I observed how the administrative complexity of soliciting, receiving, and tracking large numbers of gifts has become manageable with the Internet-mediated options available and that that availability has inspired what is called mass market and crowdsourced fundraising. The future I hoped for in the past is nearly upon us.<\/p>\n

That is all interesting and valuable (as well as potentially life-saving) for arts administrators. But I am interested in how these developments relate to engaging communities. (Try to rein in your surprise.)<\/p>\n

The reality is that not-for-profits must be responsive to their donors. When there were a relatively few large donors, arts programmers would tolerate or ignore (up to a point) the annoying suggestions that came from well-heeled supporters. But their interests were heard. Small gift donors will never have that kind of power, but collectively, to attract and maintain their contributions, arts organizations will eventually need to shift their program planning to take the interests of the larger community into account. I can imagine (in my idealistic dreams) that this might eventually lead us to a time when the arts are an expression of the whole community, bringing us in a great, millennial-scale circle back to cultural sharing around the common campfire. (Cue the violins.)<\/p>\n

The essential tool is well understood. Development officers know, better than any other arts administrators, the value of relationships. To date, that understanding has been used to cultivate the wealthy. That’s where the incentives are. But some of the same principles can be adjusted and applied to discovering the interests of a larger swath of the populace. In a September post (Fundraising as Participatory Practice<\/a>), Nina Simon of Museum 2.0<\/a> discussed this. [Nina, I hope sometime to be able to go more than a week or two without stealing from your blog.] She observed that fundraisers have good basic instincts when it comes to relationships but are wary of openness when focused on a small number of big gift donors. Maybe their understanding of relationships coupled with the openness of the web and of community engagement specialists could significantly expand the funding base for arts organizations. Who’d o’ thunk? So, with these things in mind<\/p>\n

Engage! (and rake in the cash)<\/p>\n

Doug<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least twenty years ago I began sharing this formula with students in fundraising classes. (Clearly, we were all math whizzes!) The point was (and is), of course, that a large number of small contributions is just as much $1 million as is a single contribution of that amount. I was concerned way back then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-arts-2-0","7":"category-principles","8":"entry","9":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-aB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2761,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2013\/04\/engaged-fundraising-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":0},"title":"Engaged Fundraising: II","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"April 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"When last we met, I talked about community engaged fundraising providing the option of gaining us access to more diverse funding sources. [Engaged Fundraising: I (More Pies)] Here, I am revisiting the \"math\" of a former post (Arts 2.0: 40k x $25=$1M) in which I waxed rhapsodic about the potential\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arts 2.0"","block_context":{"text":"Arts 2.0","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/arts-2-0\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/40kx25-300x35.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5034,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2017\/09\/zero-sum-funding\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":1},"title":"Zero Sum Funding?","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"September 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Zero Sum Funding? Not smaller pieces; rather, bake more pies.","rel":"","context":"In "The Practice of Engagement"","block_context":{"text":"The Practice of Engagement","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/the-practice-of-engagement\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Pies-e1502213568579.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":363,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/09\/arts-2-0\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":2},"title":"Arts 2.0","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"September 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"As the example du jour in The Eightfold Path, I raised the specter of crowdsourcing as an interesting concept for dedicated engagers (OK, for most of the arts world) to consider. It took a long time for me to get my head around the meaning of Web 2.0, the source\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arts 2.0"","block_context":{"text":"Arts 2.0","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/arts-2-0\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Crowd.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4233,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2015\/08\/afta-thoughts-2015-the-arts-and\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":3},"title":"AftA Thoughts 2015: The Arts and . . .","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"August 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The notion that the arts are about the arts alone is a very recent (and unfortunate) one, historically. They were and should be about life\u2013all of it.","rel":"","context":"In "The Arts and . . ."","block_context":{"text":"The Arts and . . .","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/the-arts-and\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ampersand","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Ampersand.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4545,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2016\/05\/artists-and-relationship-building\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":4},"title":"Artists and Relationship Building","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"May 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Artists and Relationship Building: Laura Zabel on opportunities for artists","rel":"","context":"In "Customer-Client-Collaborator Series"","block_context":{"text":"Customer-Client-Collaborator Series","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/customer-client-collaborator-series\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ZabelHeadshot","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/ZabelHeadshot-e1462549992644.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5009,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2017\/08\/arts-1-0\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":5},"title":"Arts 1.0","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"August 30, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Too much of our industry is operating with one-way \"communication\" model. 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