The day started with a friend sending me a story from overseas entitled, "After five years, has Giving Tuesday caught on?"
That was the Marketplace story that ran today on NPR.
At the Imperial Valley Desert Museum the Giving Tuesday campaign raised just under $2,000 from 16 donors. It was an average of $120 per person. This is four times what we raised last year.
About half of the people who gave I know personally. Two of them I know intimately. So yes, NPR, it has caught on. Giving Tuesday is a success. Or is it...
The surprising thing to me is that out of the 300+ members of the museum, the 11 people who sit on the Board of Directors, and the five people we employ, only 16 people donated to the museum on our Giving Tuesday campaign.
I understand that people give their time, and their energy, and their support, but at some point you have to GIVE. I think that is what the founders of Giving Tuesday set out to achieve. A day when we would give back. Not our time, but our money.
I think my family spent around $600 between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I got one thing I wanted. But today, on Giving Tuesday, we gave to three organizations totaling $170.
I feel so smug in my benevolence. But should I? I received a dozen or more requests in my inbox today from organizations that I really believe in and that I really want to support. But, evidently, the things I want are more important than the things I believe in.
That should be a lesson to us all. 100% of the Education Programs at the Imperial Valley Desert Museum are funded by donations. Today, people gave 30% of what we were hoping.
I will go buy a new Coach purse for my wife. You decide which kids don't get to come to the museum.
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