Is your group participating in Giving Tuesday?

Here is our current project that we featured in a Giving Tuesday email using Constant Contact.
Power2Give

Wesley

Is your group participating in #GivingTuesday this year? (November 28).

https://www.givingtuesday.org/



Wesley

I searched the GivingTuesday.org website using the keywords, "railway", "railroad", "trolley" and "transportation". The following nonprofit organizations came up...


CT Electric Railway Association, Inc (dba Connecticut Trolley Museum)
East Windsor, Connecticut

Northwest Railway Museum
Snoqualmie, Washington

Southeastern Railway Museum
Duluth, Georgia

Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust
Boyertown, Pennsylvania

The Colebrookdale Railroad
Boyertown, Pennsylvania

Dennison Railroad Depot Museum System
Dennison, Ohio

Frederick & Pennsylvania Line Railroad Museum, Inc
Walkersville, Maryland

Gold Coast Railroad Museum
Miami, Florida

Rosenberg Railroad Museum
Rosenberg, Texas

Siouxland Historical Railroad Association
Sioux City, Iowa

Suffolk Seaboard Station Railroad Museum
Suffolk, Virginia

The B&O Railroad Museum
Baltimore, Maryland

Western Maryland Scenic Railroad
Cumberland, Maryland

Pennsylvania Trolley Museum
Washington, Pennsylvania

Phoenix Trolley Museum
Phoenix, Arizona

North Carolina Transportation Museum Foundatio
Spencer, North Carolina

If you have contributed to various other non-profits you will have received emails from them about Giving Tuesday like I have:

The Steamship Historical Society of America

National Trust for Historic Preservation

Amador Community Foundation (I made a gift through this California countywide organization on behalf of Knights Foundry) with a matching program funded by local businesses.

And I wonder why more of our preservation efforts are not utilizing this concept to get donor support.

I got a bunch of emails from railroad-related groups on Tuesday
And countless others, too. I quit counting once I passed two dozen. If the phrase “Giving Tuesday” was in the title, the email went right to the e-trash can.
I’m at a threshold when it comes to such things. In recent years, I’ve been barraged by mail and email to give to every single cause in the world.
It reminds me of a day I was in Chicago a couple of years ago. I was walking down a street to catch up with my wife at a store. A woman, begging for change and tired of being ignored, voice the concern out loud by yelling, “Why is everyone ignoring me?”
I just couldn’t resist. I live in a place where there’s someone with a cardboard sign with what they think is a clever appeal for money written on it. I turned around and yelled right back, “IT’S BECAUSE THERE’S ONE OF YOU ON EVERY BLOCK! We’re all sick to death of being asked for money by those who won’t work for it like the rest of us do!” People stopped walking for a moment, and several applauded. If looks could kill..,
This is where we are now. There’s one on ever block. Too many causes, too many asking for money, too many replies of, “I don’t care, MINE is the cause you should care about,” responses when you tell them there’s too many hands out to give something to everyone.
When I have donated money, foolishly, I now think, they’ll spend ten-fold that amount trying to pry more money from me. I’ve even called a few asking to quit sending me stuff as they’re wasting other donor’s money by doing so. I even mailed back a hat I was sent as a thank you for a donation a few years ago (which was mailed with a plea for more money), citing that I no longer support a cause that is so wasteful with their donations. I would have loved to have seen the looks on their faces when they read that.
Maybe “go fund me” types with their hands out to get money for stuff they should have worked for killed it for me. Maybe as I approach my 50s (two years off, but I can see it in the distance coming fast) I’m just getting a head start on being a grumpy old man. Maybe there really are too many causes, but no matter what, I’m sick TO DEATH of it all.
Sorry, but I had to get that off my chest. Seeing this thread was that final straw.