Our Development Director, Steven Michael Carr, reflects on a recent gathering with our Give for Good Fundraising Champions.
The 345 Reasons
On Tuesday evening, 345 reasons to be grateful made their way into my home. Not the people themselves, exactly, but their names, printed onto lists and matched with stacks of blank cards waiting to be filled.
I had set out a large charcuterie board, because I believe most giant tasks become slightly less intimidating when cheese is involved. Prosecco chilled in the refrigerator. Pens were scattered across the dining room table. Dance music played in the background while my dogs, Mercy and Kiley, took their positions underneath everyone’s feet to oversee the snacks.
Chris, Lauri, and Tom arrived first. Before long, 11 of the 14 people who served as HCM’s Give for Good Champions were gathered around my dining room table, surrounded by blue walls, two china cabinets, and a truly daunting amount of stationery.
Give for Good Louisville happens almost entirely online. For one very busy day, emails fly, social media feeds fill up, phones buzz, and a little fundraising total on a screen climbs higher and higher.
This year, 345 donors helped Highlands Community Ministries raise $58,398 to support our neighbors. But there is a strange thing that can happen when you spend a whole day watching numbers move on a screen. If you are not careful, the people can disappear. Three hundred forty-five is an exciting number. It is also 345 individual decisions.
Someone opened a message from a friend and decided to give. Someone saw a story about a neighbor struggling to put food on the table and decided to help. Someone who had never heard of HCM before trusted one of our Champions enough to become part of this work. Someone gave again because they have seen what this community can do when we take care of one another.
Every number had a name. Every name deserved a thank-you.
The People Behind the Campaign
Our Champions made this year’s Give for Good campaign personal. They told their own friends why HCM matters. They sent texts, wrote emails, posted videos, shared stories, and asked people they knew to help strengthen the safety net for our community. That kind of asking can feel vulnerable. You are not simply sharing an organization’s post. You are putting your own name beside the cause and saying, “I believe in this. Will you join me?”
So I did not want our time together after the campaign to feel like a staff meeting. These people had invited HCM into their relationships. The least I could do was invite them into my home. Before we started writing, we talked about what worked, what did not, and what surprised them. Some of our Champions were participating for the first time. Others were returning after serving last year, and every returning Champion raised more this year than they did before.
Justin, a first-time Champion, said the experience was “more mentally draining than I thought it would be.” He was proud to reach his goal, but he also came away with a much clearer understanding of how much work goes into a successful campaign. He learned a lot about the importance of gift matches and now wants to sit down with me to talk about how organizations secure them.
Kim, who was also serving as an HCM Champion for the first time, said, “I really appreciated how organized everything was.”
Champions said that having a team, a shared way to communicate, help building their campaign profiles, a step-by-step guide, and training on the strategy made the experience as manageable as it could be.
The challenges they described were almost entirely technical. Mightycause, the platform used for Give for Good, is not always intuitive. Champions wished there were an easier way to connect gifts made through HCM’s main page with the individual Champion who inspired them.
Unfortunately, we cannot rebuild the platform ourselves. I checked.
But experience made a real difference. Returning Champions said their friends already understood HCM and knew why they were being asked to give. They did not have to begin every conversation with a full explanation. They were also more familiar with Mightycause, so the entire day felt more relaxed.
Lauri offered perhaps the most useful advice for future Champions: “Take the day off from work.” Because Give for Good is busier than you think it will be.
Written by Hand
There are faster ways to thank 345 people. Trust me. My email platform could send a message to every donor in the time it takes me to find a working pen. And donors did receive an immediate acknowledgment of their gifts. But efficiency is not the same thing as gratitude.
A handwritten note asks something of the person writing it. You have to slow down. You have to look at a name. You have to remember that the gift did not simply appear in a total. A person chose to give it.
Each Champion received a list of the people who donated through their campaign. We also had more than eight additional pages of people who gave through HCM’s main campaign page.
Then we got to work.
Pens moved across cards while dance music played and prosecco glasses made their way around the table. Mercy and Kiley continued monitoring the charcuterie board for possible security breaches. Most people were so focused on writing that they waited until they finished their own lists before getting anything to eat.
And then something happened that I had not expected. After several Champions finished thanking their own donors, they picked up additional pages and kept going. By the end of the gathering, we had completed more than 100 handwritten notes. Several people took another 30 or 40 names home so they could finish those cards later in the week.
Again and again, people said, “This is such a good idea to knock out the notes this way.” It made the task feel less overwhelming. It also took an enormous weight off my shoulders. The giant stack became smaller with every card written. More importantly, the numbers became people again.
The campaign had lasted one day. The relationships that made it successful had taken years to build. That is the part of Give for Good that no fundraising total can fully capture. HCM did not raise $58,398 alone. Fourteen Champions opened the doors to their own communities, and 345 people walked through them.
Lauri said that opening my home for the gathering, rather than hosting another meeting at HCM, showed how personally invested I was in the work alongside them. She was right. This was personal.
These Champions had spent Give for Good Day in the trenches with me. Now we were sitting around my dining room table, sharing food, drinking prosecco, and making sure the people who supported us knew that their generosity had been seen.
The Giving Day Ends. Gratitude Doesn’t.
Before the evening ended, we raised our glasses. There were plenty of things I could have toasted: $58,398 raised, 345 donors, or the fact that every returning Champion had surpassed the year before.
But the message was simpler than that. “To being the safety net.” Because that is what these Champions had done. They invited their friends into the work. They helped carry the campaign. And now they were helping carry the gratitude that followed.
After everyone left, I looked at the stacks of completed cards sitting on my dining room table. More than 100 names. More than 100 people who had chosen to support our neighbors. And now, 11 Champions had chosen to help me thank them.
I had started the evening grateful for 345 donors. I ended it grateful that I was not doing any of this by myself.
