Sometimes Things Just Work Out: A Fundraiser’s Tale of Year-End Optimism

Editor’s note: This is the sixth annual holiday post from Karen Brooks Hopkins, in which the president emerita of Brooklyn Academy of Music shares some end-of-the-year reflections from her career in fundraising. You can read Karen’s previous posts here.

This past year has truly been a revelation to me. My book, “BAM…And Then It Hit Me,” a memoir of my 36 years at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, America’s oldest performing arts center, finally arrived on our shores last February, despite the challenges of the global supply chain crisis. From that moment until now, I have experienced a great adventure through my worldwide book tour, talking to people from Brooklyn to Cambodia and beyond about fundraising, leadership and the arts.

It has truly been heartwarming and energizing to meet so many dedicated professionals in our field, who have delivered important services to the not-for-profit sector, even with the lingering effects of COVID threatening our return to normalcy. This tour has been a touching reminder of what a resilient and determined bunch we fundraisers are.

I’ve heard any number of stories about the turmoil the last few years have brought to our profession and the critical work we support. But I’ve also heard lots of stories about pleasant surprises — successful digital donor meetings, record-breaking virtual gala dinners, and donors who displayed levels of generosity we could never anticipate.

With this recent history in mind, I wanted to share a fundraising story from the past that will warm your heart and, I hope, deliver an extra dose of optimism as you brace for your end of year returns.

So, let’s set the stage. Here is how I remember it…

It was the late 1980s or early 1990s, a time before technology ruled the world. GoFundMe and Zoom were barely glimmers in some future programmers’ eyes. In fact, computers, even as a tool for direct mail fundraising solicitation, were just coming into vogue, and at that point, only very large organizations could afford them.

There are pioneers in any emerging business strategy and, as I recall, this story features a woman named Sanky Perlowin, who was a fundraising consultant spearheading a large, tech-driven mail campaign for a major charity. Perhaps it was Planned Parenthood or Easter Seals; I’m not exactly sure. In any case, under Sanky’s direction, thousands of letters went out as part of the usual end-of-the-year campaign asking donors to renew and, hopefully, even consider upgrading their support.

So far, everything I’ve told you is the status quo, but as legend has it, the computer software at the time, instead of articulating the specific amount the individual contributed the prior year and asking for a renewal, instead identified the cumulative amount that each donor had given since they started making annual contributions to that charity.

For example, the letter should have said, “Dear Ms. X, last year you generously donated $25. This year we are hoping you will consider $50 etc., etc.” The glitch, however, added up all the contributions from the beginning of each donor’s history, so the letter for that same recipient read, “Dear Ms. X, Last year you generously contributed $500 and now we hope you will give $1,000 etc., etc.” You get the idea.

Now, as we all know, this mistake could have been a disaster, resulting in hundreds of angry and/or confused donors tossing the appeal in the trash and leaving a huge gap in the organization’s budget.

And yet, as luck and the holiday spirit would have it, each of the donors read the letter and, lo and behold, most of them sent in the much larger new amount requested. It was a windfall! An amazing outcome.

In this business, our best-laid plans are sometimes foiled. Donors often leave us pulling our hair out. And new technology sometimes gets the better of us. Still…

Sometimes… you never know… things just work out!

Happy New Year to all. Good luck with that end-of-the-year renewal effort.

Karen Brooks Hopkins is president emerita of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her new memoir, “BAM…And Then It Hit Me,” is available here.

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