Debate Over the Use of Peer Pressure on Trustees; Plus More: Wednesday’s Roundup
By Maria Di Mento
Senior Editor
May 26, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
- Writing on the Step by Step Fundraising blog, Gail Perry, a Raleigh, N.C., consultant who works with nonprofit boards, encourages charity leaders to use peer pressure in getting board members to follow through on their commitments to the organization. They can, for example, ask trustees to report on what they have accomplished at every meeting. But Chicago fund-raising and management consultant Jennifer Price, writing in her Philanthropy Ink blog, takes exception to that advice: “Peer pressure leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of many — is that how you want your board members to think of you?”
- Jenni Wolfson, managing director of Witness, writes on the organization’s blog about asking friends and family members to contribute to the New York human-rights group. “It was an eye-opening experience for me,” she writes. “Whilst asking for money is about as comfortable as a self-administered root canal, the effort was validated by the overwhelming response.”
- Cause marketers need to balance philanthropy, marketing, and business in the programs they create and keep in mind that campaigns should be about the greater good, writes Joe Waters, a director of cause marketing for a Boston hospital. On the blog, Selfish Giving, Mr. Waters discusses Absolut’s city-themed charity campaign and its recent donation of $50,000 for affordable housing in Brooklyn. He argues that while the campaign had good potential at the beginning, Absolut never evolved beyond a flat donation to a good cause.
- MergeMinnesota, a guide published by MAP for Nonprofits, which provides management assistance to charities, is now available online.
