My apologies for the cut and paste technical error. This should be easier
to read--and to challenge.
Thanks to Patrick for the helpful information. And thanks to Sheldon for the
great suggestion. Minneapolis can rest assured that the check is in the mail
as soon as this months' payroll clears--Monday for sure. Don't expect much,
however, as my gift will be based on my ability to pay. No matter how many
times I ask them, my financial institution of choice (sorry Bill, it has the
word 'union' in its name!) will unfortunately not allow me to write checks
that my account can't cash.
There are a number of reasons--with which I will not bore
this list--for my desire to make a financial contribution to the city. The
main reason is so that the next time a friend (or foe), during a rational
conversation about the state of our city, suggests that I should volunteer to
have my "taxes" raised to foot the bill for a better X, I can reply that
I've been there and done that. On to the next idea please.
The suggestion that voluntary contributions are equal to
taxes is false. As we learned long ago (Was there a School House Rock tune on
taxes and if so what was the tone? I don't remember) taxes are involuntary
assessments while contributions are voluntary gifts also going by the name of
donations. No matter how hard our governor tried to convince us otherwise in
the recent past, taxes are like fees especially in the sense that one is
expected to pay. By their very nature donations are not expected; they are
asked for on top of normal expectations and thusly are not given at a high
rate.
Many organizations ask for donations. That's the number one
reason that individuals and businesses give donations--because somebody asked
them to give. Minnesotans (especially Minneapolitans) are very generous with
their giving. For this, I commend all of the givers in this list's
membership. The state offers us the chance each year to make a financial
contribution in addition to our tax assessment. They make this offer in
writing. In other words, they ask us to contribute. Without checking the
stats, I'll bet the house (I really don't like to gamble) that less than 10%
of us generous Minnesotans take the state up on its offer. Granted, this is a
weak ask as the state would increase their compliance rate by investing in a
more elaborate relationship building program for prospective donors, but is
this what it or the City of Minneapolis should be spending its time and
resources doing? I argue no. Patrick confirmed my suspicion that the
city
needs to expend considerable resources to properly process a donation--even
an unsolicited donation. Most effective organizations work to reduce their
fundraising overhead as the city (us) does by assessing taxes rather than
organizing bake sales. This allows the city to efficiently collect its (our
collective) resources.
So how much does Minneapolis take in each year in
donations? In the spirit of brevity I won't trot out the census stats to do
the math, but in my nine plus years of fundraising from individuals and
businesses the average gift of a first time donors is in the $20-$25 range
while donors who already have a giving history with the organization average
in the $30-$40 range. For most organizations these averages are achieved by
soliciting many small contributions and a very few large contributions--based
on the givers' ability to pay. These donors, of course, were asked to give.
The City of Minneapolis has not asked anyone to make a donation to my
knowledge so we'll drastically drop the 10% giving rate to 5% for these
purposes. One doesn't even need to do the math to imagine what we could NOT
fund with a donation mechanism in Minneapolis.
Matty Lang,
Not usually making random donations in Central
---------------------------------
Yahoo! DSL Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less
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