After reading the blogs and participating in conference calls and every other forum, the question remains: What works? Because we are a UAF we want to know the message that helps garner investments. But any one of us knows that to do whatever we do, we need money. How do we get it?
We ask each other, searching for just the right message that will resonate–with corporations and individuals. One of my questions has become: Is true philanthropy gone? We continually try to link investment with return–and not just helping create a wonderfully rich community–a dollar return. What do you get for the money?
When we fashion our asks to increase the money invested by providing some sort of quantifiable ROI, are we doing ourselves and the agencies we serve a favor These agencies produce art, history, culture–and while that is a huge benefit to our community–it is also art, history, and culture. It is beyond description, beyond belief sometimes, beyond a metric, and truly valuable for its own sake.
So how do we move forward? Some of the blogs suggest that when business is better our industry will be better. Many of our agencies operate the same way. I, for one, do not believe the climate will return as before. It will be different, and most likely less well funded, so what do we do?
Let’s grapple with this!
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