I read this article this morning and was wondering if anybody has seen a downturn in donations as of late with these cold water challenges.

http://qz.com/249649/the-cold-hard-trut ... challenge/

While these challenges work great for the cause they're intended for, it seems to rob donations from other causes.

How can we adapt something like the cold water or cold bucket challenge and adapt it for museum funding?

-J.T.

I'm not sure we have a broad enough appeal to attract the number of donors needed to make a successful bucket campaign. Are there enough folks interested in the restoration of old (fill-in-the-blank) to raise cubic dollars one bucket at a time?

From experience our Museum has run several small campaigns using Power2Give, an established crowd-funding program that originated in Charlotte, NC. The object of P2G is to attract multiple small donors to underwrite a specific project without using cold water and buckets. We have tried several ways to reach our visitors to get them to donate small amounts, yet the campaigns have succeeded on donations from our regular pool of donors plus a few new donors.

It is hard to get the reach needed to make the P2G model work as planned and I think the same would be true for buckets.

Wesley

I volunteer to beat this guys record to help save the F40PH http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/23635 Now where do I find 100 rattle snakes and a TV crew?

Washington DC when Congress is in session. Well over a hundred rattlesnakes, and usually a couple TV crews, too.

My experience with donors at our Museum, my church and various non-profits where I have been employed, I think folks give where their interests are. My pastor like to say "show me your checkbook and your calendar and I will know what you are passionate about." The cold water challenges may pick off a few of your donors, or dilute an individual's giving so that you get a little less. The challenge I see is to keep your donors happy and learn what they respond to in terms of an appeal. Lose a donor's interest and then they are likely to be attracted to a gimmick like the cold water challenge.

On the other hand you can also ask too often. As an example at my current job we send three general appeal letters each year. This year the second letter received little response. We lost money on the mailing. Then we sent the invitation for our once-in-a-lifetime tenth anniversary party and the checks came rolling in from the usual suspects. Early in the year we told them to save the date for the event and they not only saved the date, they saved the money for the date!

Wesley

Here is an opinion from SLATE.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/08/12/icebucketchallenge_you_don_t_need_an_ice_bucket_to_donate_to_als_research.html

Wesley

J.T. Did I miss your ice bucket challenge video?
For mine, I will mention my pet steam engine projects for donations. It can't hurt.

While this is getting a lot of play in the press (because it's colorful) the amount of money actually taken in --- so far --- is relatively small --- on the order of 13 million.

Bob H

Ahh Tim, you've only missed it because it hasn't been made yet. Somehow I've dodged being nominated.

As for only 13 million being raised.....think of how far that would go in preservation. Coming from the pharmaceutical world, it's just a drop in the bucket, but in the preservation world, it could be the difference between a cosmetic and operation restoration for quite a few locomotives. My girlfriend last night suggested the hot ash pan challenge. Somehow I don't think that would work so well.

I think this is being blown way out of proportion...

Yes, you're "competing" with ALS for donations. You're also competing with every other charity out there. And Apple (they're coming out with a new iPhone soon), and Burger King, and McDonalds, and the Mall and back to school shopping and movies and the opera and, and and...

People only have so much disposable income. The amount they donate to charity may vary, and it may increase if they feel so led. That increase may come from the amount they donate to your favorite charity/non profit/museum, it may come from additional earnings they have acquired, or they may cut back in other areas like skipping going out to dinner or the movies.

Yes, the ALS went viral and it's great for them. Yes, $13 Mil and counting is a lot, and would do wonders. But let's put it into perspective. Americans gave $335.17 billion in 2013.
http://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-re ... tatistics/

Suddenly 13 million doesn't seem like such a huge portion. I also suspect that it's more likely to be diverted from people's donations to other related organizations, say the American Cancer Society or the Red Cross.

Your goal is to make your museum worth donating to. Ideally, you'll do so in a manner that encourages repeat donations in some manner.

Don't get too excited about the "Cause of the Month", it's ALS this time, next month it will be Tigers and the month after that it will be Kids in Africa. There will always be somebody else asking for donations to a worthy cause, your focus is to make your cause worthy too. (Or to run your operation at a profit and avoid the whole mess.)

To put this in perspective, there are something like 2 million non profits in this country, so it works out to about $6 per organization.

and the 13 mill won't go very far in the medical field, particularly if fund raising costs are taken into account.

Bob H