Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $1.19 coffee + $8 lunch + $25 poker game
Crazy, crazy day today. I work for a large non-profit in Seattle, who shall remain nameless (initials are UW). Today we organized and readied pledges for processing from a large company. From my perspective it was fun, putting pledges in piles, adding things together, taking a box of unruly and making it "ruly". Just a few observations on the process.
1. Fascinating looking at personalized/ artistic checks. It makes you wonder what kind of adult writes a Kenny Chesney or a Scooby Doo check. Since artistic checks come in a series you have to wonder ... for every Kenny Chesney-guitar pose check, do you get the Rene Zellweger handing-you-divorce-papers check? 
2. Checks are a magnet for another kind of transaction - badly filled out checks. A fundraising staffer showed one check which had the money amount written on the to:line, where our name of our non-profit is supposed to go. Nothing else. We can't cash it. I was pretty sanguine about it. "Fake pledging at its finest," I said.
Fake pledging happens every so often. Its a badly filled out check or a pledge form. Sometimes the check bounces, sometimes the "donor" wants his gift to go to a place that we can't send it (a place that's not a non-profit). If you are new to the non-profit biz, you think, "how can the person be so careless?" The old hands to this biz just smile. Fake pledging. After all, if the person is paying a mortgage or rent ... they know damn well how to write a check.
Fake pledging is perfect to the passive aggressive employee. They appear to follow the herd and pledge, and if they do it in the sight of others they aren't bothered for the rest of the fundraiser. They don't have to go through the discomfort of saying no. Best of all, they spend no money - when the fake pledge gets to us, we can't cash the check so we don't book it.
Too bad the employee who didn't want to participate couldn't say no... they could save themselves a check, we could save some time, and we would have no one to laugh at.
fake pledging
December 1st, 2007 at 07:20 am
December 1st, 2007 at 01:04 pm 1196514299
December 1st, 2007 at 01:53 pm 1196517227
I've always wondered just how well non-profits really do pay in the end, because I think that's something that I'd like to consider doing some time down the road. Work for a worthy cause. Get paid.
But no need to answer my question, of course, as that wouldn't be appropriate in a public setting. Just thinking out loud, that's all.
December 1st, 2007 at 09:16 pm 1196543795
December 1st, 2007 at 11:43 pm 1196552634
broken arrow - yep. For an additional clue: the wicked among us loved the fake Saturday Night Live ad w/Payton Manning. A You Tube classic. As far as pay, actually not too bad compared to academia. Less than corporate w/some of the strange office politics, but the benefits are relatively good. Management is trying to prune them a bit.
mom-from-missouri - totally understand that aspect. From the non-profit's perspective, who wants a donor's last buck, forcing them into using non-profit services...how is that helping? And then the other side from the other side: next year, when the campaign staff gives the company the basic stats - dollars and participation rate - the company freaks and tells us we're wrong because "they have 100% participation!" Sigh. As a data/money geek I have to wonder what's really happening once the participation rate gets above 80%.
December 2nd, 2007 at 04:11 am 1196568708
December 7th, 2007 at 09:38 pm 1197063530
Good thing you're not like a old co-worker of mine. If she ever came across a check that was not filled out properly, she'd just go ahead and fill in ALL the neccesary blanks! Even the signature. Sure enough there was NEVER a problem.
Hey, one good turn deserves another.
December 8th, 2007 at 01:18 am 1197076701
Why didn't we think of that? Genius!