For decades, I watched it happen. Worse, I participated in it by using harmful fundraising techniques to fill the coffers of the organizations I ran. Pursuing money can quickly overtake all the good that religious organizations do.
Thousands of otherwise content people–who loved their kids, had a ball with their grandkids, wept with joy at the sight of their first grandchild, were polite to their neighbors, gracious to their friends, and warm to their fellow church members–suddenly turned mean, angry, and even menacing.
Every year, Americans give over $100 billion to religious causes and almost $20 billion to political ones. That money doesn’t come cheaply. Fundraisers, marketing experts, communications consultants, and all the print and digital production people who craft the campaigns that pull in these donations keep a big chunk of the total. Money equates to power and influence. The bigger an organization’s budget, the more clout it exercises–but there are other benefits, too. Getting that money and clout, though, takes lots of donations, which means even more donors because they won’t all be active at the same time. The magic number is 50,000–but you can do a whole lot more with one million.
Recruiting tens and hundreds of thousands and up to a million financial supporters means saturating whole sectors of the population with messages that affect what they think and what they do.
The Pecuniary Pathway
Religious fundraisers, especially on the conservative end of the spectrum, have long led the field in dollars. Still, liberals aren’t far behind. Each side has specialty expert houses that know the demographics, messaging, and donor behavior patterns matching those markets. They send billions of letters, emails, texts, and videos to condition and capture donors.
Most non-profits–religious, political, or otherwise–also maintain internal marketing, development, and fundraising departments. The people who populate these cubicles test flights of email, paper mail, and advertising for the best results. They employ algorithmic data and other software tools, as well as AI and, yes, even human creativity, to hone appeals that draw the best results.
Part of the test process is selecting various batches of names and mailing them the same content, but packaged differently: Oversized envelopes versus regular-sized, colored “carrier envelopes” instead of standard white or manilla ones, using slogans on the outside on some, and no wording on others. Email will have different subject lines, font sizes, and use of images or graphics compared to others that only use standard black-and-white text content.
With paper mail, the idea is always to get the recipient “inside the envelope.” The more “stuff” that falls out, the better, making the experience more enjoyable. Ultimately, the piece doesn’t succeed unless a “TAD,” or Turn-Around-Device, is mailed back–better yet, if it has a check or credit card slip with it, transmitting a donation.
With email, the goal is first to get an “open” and then get clicks to a landing page. Getting the recipient to click on a specific donation amount–those “$1, $5, $25 pre-set amounts you see–helps a lot.
Once the “returns” on all these tests are processed, “list brokers” engage in renting, buying, and swapping fruitful “files.” (Donor names are paid for and traded among competing organizations.) Sometimes, groups will internally stage “re-capture campaigns” to re-activate donors. If they are successful, they “mainstream” the reawakened donors. The unsuccessful file segments can still generate money through leasing and sales for the files’ owner.
Reducing People To Numbers
The bottom line to all this (pun intended) is that donors become computer record numbers and lump assets, especially for huge organizations, identified by multidigit record numbers. Unless you’re a “major donor, ” super-donor,” or “mega-donor,” you’ll likely only ever get automated attention–no real person will ever know your name, where you live, precisely why you donated, or exactly how much you gave. You will only be a computation factor for a big number total or fraction on a computer-generated report called an “ROI” (Return On Investment).
Millions of donors, representing trillions of dollars, processed by thousands of fundraising entities to benefit hundreds of thousands of conservative religious and political non-profits, add up to a big pot of money. For the consultants and owners of the for-profit entities that contract with big non-profits, this cash windfall often turns into invitation-only American Express Black Centurian Cards, NetJet private air travel memberships, resort-style venues for “meetings,” not to mention considerable personal wealth.
Sacred Schemes
A common scheme used to disguise how charitable donations make people rich is for one entity or person to own the other vendors in the chain. For example, a fundraiser may appear to charge reasonable service fees. Still, they own the creative, printing, mailing, data, and financial management vendors used in fundraising. Sometimes, the equation means that only 10-50% of each donated dollar goes to the donor’s intended cause.
The money-making side of religious non-profits has become so lucrative for everyone that the fundraisers can end up running the operation. It doesn’t matter what the mission is; the real objective becomes generating more and higher-dollar contributions. How do you do that? By ginning up fear and anger. Villianizing the “other,” painting opponents and those who disagree with an organization’s constituency as evil, dangerous, and “out to get us,” is a very effective way of achieving this end.
The brain chemistry that goes with fight or flight, rage and disgust, pride and humiliation make for unmatched motivators. When a person feels threatened, offended, or humiliated, they’ll give more money to more things than they would ever do, absent those emotions.
Curing The Dollar Disease
The answer to this serious problem is both internal and external. It’s as much about why we give our money as what we give it to. A good self-check is to ask, How does this cause make me feel? Why do I want to give this group my money? What emotions are triggered by what I’m reading, hearing, and seeing?
And it’s not just looking inward but outward at the subject of the appeal.
It’s time for donors to pause and ask questions about the causes they give to–or are asked to give to– especially the nature of the communications they get about those causes. Here are a few things to consider before you give any money in response to an appeal:
Who are the villains and heroes in the appeal? What do you actually know about them? Probably not that much. Doing your research- more accessible than ever using Google- will give you a more balanced picture.
What is the tone of communication? If it’s repetitive, breathless, frantic, exaggerated, vague–it’s a technique to get your blood boiling and your anxieties to kick in. In other words, the people behind it don’t want you to think soberly about it because you might send them less or nothing. They’ll do much better if they play with your emotions.
How is the recipient of your money held accountable? Do they disclose where the money goes, who approves the spending, who raises it–and what other business entities the fundraisers own?
Reinforcing Accountability
Various watchdog groups monitor non-profits and publish some of this information. Organizations themselves may file an annual IRS Form 990 that reveals some facts, even beyond financial data. Of course, religious groups enjoy certain privileges that other non-profits don’t. For example, if a religious non-profit claims to be a church (and more conservative entities are doing just that), they are exempt from reporting. You can find a helpful list here of places you can go to check out whoever is asking you for your money.
You can also ask non-profits directly to provide financial reports, meeting minutes, and organizational documents such as charters and bylaws. As a public-facing tax-exempt organization, they are at least ethically obligated to furnish this type of information to the public. And they may also be legally required to do so.
Scrutiny, accountability, and due diligence are critical because money is power, and power is control. Individuals and organizations exercise control benevolently or malevolently. What most of us don’t want to do is contribute unknowingly and unthinkingly to something that harms and exploits others. Our “gifts” sometimes end up hurting us and others.
At the very least, as fundraisers make hundreds of millions of people madder and madder, more afraid, more suspicious, and more contemptuous of others, more damage is done to individual lives, families, communities, and our whole nation.
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Toxic Treasures
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