The Little Words Mean the Most

Toma and Andrée Joyaux in Providence, Nov. 2022; photo by the impeccable Nicole Joyaux Kramer

Living Out Loud [lyrics] & maybe fundraising 101?

 

If you love me

    Say it

If you trust me

    Do it

If you want me

    Show it

If you need me

    Prove it

 

Actions speak louder than words

So don't say things I've already heard

the scene in the film

what brilliance looks like

 

Ashley & Amy's new chair, made cat-claw-proof (once felines learn to read and obey); creepy Roger Williams; Andrée Joy-Ox

Spent a delicious Thanksgiving meal with my side of the family

 

All senses GO!

Journal Entry by Tom Ahern — 40 minutes ago

Thank you Linda Ray Carl Amy Johnny Ben Chris Maria sister Alice

We talked about Sim One many times.

My side of the family is seriously brilliant in various ways ... but I drifted apart and they hardly knew ye, Simone.

Today, we talked a lot about ALL the missing: parents and so.

Simone was AT this table. She would have ADORED the dessert choices ... and the people surrounding them, with serving knives in hand.

Giving thanks ... especially you, the family gatherers, Linda and Ray.

And cousin Johnnie: I learned so much today from you.

And Alice: Old Faithful, with boundless respect (only hope I can keep up.)

Yeah, Johnnie, go to Scotland

 

 

Visitors to PVD

 

Downtown Providence, RI is pretty interesting, actually.

You can see, via the merchants, the influence of the RI School of Design (aka RISD: Riz-Dee; also considered the world's greatest design school; and the resulting heavy concentration of artists) + the influence of Johnson & Wales (a global culinary institute; headquartered in Providence) + the strong ethnic influence: RI has always been an immigrant state; every wave hit here hard ... the latest are Latin-American and African and the occasional Ukrainian. Ethnic dining options abound, as a result.

Brown is on the top of a very steep hill. Your elders will be panting. Compulsive pickle-ball players will not.

There is a gentler way, though. Let me be your guide? I know the softer route.

And though I'm no academic, I'm probably slightly better than a new-ish cab driver (with all due respect). Maybe I can fill in some blanks. Since I've lived in RI since 1965. Since I read local history for pleasure. Since I've worked with all sorts of charities hereabouts ... including the state's foremost Indigenous-led museum (see case brochure attached; I wrote it ... and it only took a year and half to beat my white-man's preconceptions out of it).

I promise to stick to the truth, as I know it.

We'll take in downtown murals (big here). Wander across the new pedestrian bridge (named for a one-time client; lands you at Plant City, BTW). Up super-funky Wickenden Street; along the waterfront a bit maybe. Then into the Brown area, which is historic, vibrant, architectural, thought-provoking (some of the Brown family's wealth was built on the slave trade, which was legal at the time; it's gets complicated, since another Brown brother was a devote Quaker abolitionist). THEN downhill (the right direction for those who pant) through RISD.

Oh, yeah: America's industrial revolution started on these very rivers, the ones you'll be crossing. What are now pricey lofts and condominiums upstream were once factories making STUFF. A blatant, infamous act of industrial espionage got the whole thing rolling.

 

response to an inquirer, about me speaking at a conference for private schools in February 2023

 

[continuing]

 

The year before the pandemic, I presented 36 times, mostly in person, around the world. On an airplane every few weeks. Now I am sorely out of practice with the travel side of things. (Which end of the suitcase is up?)

 

I've delivered since a heavy schedule of webinars ... and that brings me to a suggestion ...

 

I've done many presentations (including internationally) through Zoom.

 

I don't charge for these shows. I do them from my home office. There's no fee. There's no expense. Volunteering seems right during these plague years. Plus I've learned from hundreds of mentors ... so this is a golden chance to pay some of that forward.

 

If you choose this alternative....

 

The host (YOU; or at least The Inn @....) deals with technical details ... and I simply show up on screen with my PowerPoint incantations. Maybe there's a quick rehearsal ahead of time, just to make sure the AV works.

 

I did one of these for arts groups across Australia just last week.

 

I did one for US Orthodox rabbis nationwide the week before that.

 

Today, I did one for a fabulous US human services charity with many state affiliates ... a few minutes ago.

 

Webinars are pretty painless (as long as you stick with proven providers like Zoom).

 

Your event sounds interesting. Over my long career, I've worked with a number of private schools....

 

The last time I did an in-person speaking gig exclusively for privates was exactly a decade ago, for CASE-NAIS. It was also in February. It was preceded by a blizzard at the departure airport. I landed (finally) in Denver at 5 AM, speaking at 9 AM. Had a long chat with my born-in-Ethiopia cab driver (it's a drive; the Denver airport is over the curve of the earth from the city itself).

 

He vowed to take me to the city's best Ethiopian restaurant. I never cashed that promise in, alas. I like food experiences. I don't recall if I ever saw a hotel room.

 

Anyway, just a thought. Me coming into a roomful of your attendees via Zoom; almost-disastrous Denver was ALSO in February. Zoom saves you money. Saves you worry. In February, it may be more dependable, travel-wise.

 

To a client who'd requested a short bio

 

My brief official bio goes something like this ... at the moment:

In 2016, the New York Times called Tom Ahern "one of America’s most sought-after creators of fund-raising messages." In 2021, author and respected legacy expert, Richard Radcliffe, said: "Tom Ahern is possibly the greatest non-profit copywriter on the planet." Tom's recent cases range from massive campaigns with a $1 billion goal to local community chests hoping to raise small amounts. He has authored 7 highly-rated how-to books on donor communications. He speaks internationally. During the pandemic, he collaborated with the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy (UK) to devise a best-selling online course for charity copywriting.

Client responds to my bio:

Perfect! Shameless if it is true!

Me:

 

Yeah, it's true. I have more credentials and achievements than a porcupine has quills. NOT to brag ... because it was mostly about clients agreeing, "We're getting out of your way. Do what you think is best." Then we BOTH succeeded ... because EASY gains were just sitting there on the table, ready to be plucked.

 

Typically, my partners and I have more lay-psychology training than our nonprofit clients. Which meant THEY were guessing ... and we were only SEMI-guessing. We felt (knew-ish!) we could maybe reliably extract more money from their supporter base ... as long as clients allowed our uninhibited appeals and such to go free-range.

 

No mysteries. No magic.

 

Our confidence came from neuroscience; other recent research. A lot has changed in fundraising since the 1990s. NOT because of shiny new things ... but because we understand donor behavior MUCH better now.

 

love mushrooms

 

~ tom

 

 

Post US midterm election day: IMO

To quote Aaron Blake, columnist in The Washington Post (thank you, Jeff B.):

Should Republicans fail to pick up one seat in the Senate (the gain they need to flip it), it would be just the seventh time the opposition party has failed to do so in a midterm over the past 100 years. And the average gain for the opposition party in House races over the past 100 years is 29 seats, which Republicans won’t match.

Analyst Blake is talking about a CENTURY of precedent. This was a hundred-year political storm. Not because the Dems were so right ... but because, IMO, the GOP Trumpstarts were so wrong.

In other words (one more IMO): this was NOT a referendum on the White House, the party in power, the sloshing economy. This, IMO, was a referendum on the crazy shit ... and Republican extremist-manipulators were told NO! Go back to your caves.

You can't govern 330 million people without intense respect for diversity and change and compromise. Not true: maybe you CAN govern VAST #s ... if you're a totalitarian regime. I've consulted since with a couple of successful international political operatives. They agreed: about 35% of the voting populace always PREFERs an authoritarian, dictatorial, beggar-off Jews. Hitting back???<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>?;

8-ummm or less????

[translated into Icelandish] judt er=tell me ehrtr to csrtpkeom or dohot, sf err y=to bury my fhifrem.

Well, we'll see.

 

On US election day, Nov. 8, 2022, a dear friend...

 

... who's voted for Donald Trump twice

... will drive us both to Foster RI's local polling station

... and we will vote: dutifully, faithfully, our best; marking our secret ballots

... opposite ends, for adequate reasons

... and go hiking again next week together

... with deep respect & love, whatever happens

 

Forgive me, if this is a Loch Ness repeat ... it was important to Simone and me

In a small Scottish inn, we spot hints of the coming pandemic

... before the average world hears the news

         It's a master class for about 25 fundraising professionals. It starts Monday, March 2, 2020; we meet and mingle the night before. There's a fire. There's a single-malt bar. Our classroom overlooks Loch Ness. Highland cattle bagged in thick copper hair and lengthy horns graze the sloping fields in front of The Inch, our inn and classroom. These animals are an ancient Scottish breed. We're staring at Neolithic-period meat and milk.

         Loch Ness isn't all that wide. But it is the very, very, well-fine-not-really-all-that-implausibly deep home to the (please adopt this lovely word) "cryptozoological monster" touristically known in gift shops as Nessie.

         And you know what, when you're teaching a master class?

         The Nessie legend is an f*ing distraction. Delegates can't help glancing out the windows, hoping. Walk a few minutes to the nearby village of Fort Augustus: Nessie is unavoidable. Nessie burgers. Nessie squish toys in tartans. Loch Ness energy drinks: "Guzzle the damn stuff!!! You'll feel like a dragon trapped inside a fathomless lake for at least 10,000 years!" Nessie petrol. And Nessie boat patrol.

         Along with meals, lodging and pitiless fundraising instructors [us] yapping about expertise for 2.5 days, our master-class students get a complimentary boat trip up Loch Ness from Fort Augustus.

         It's a sedate ride. A colony of feral goats chewing the scenery on the loch's sheer cliffs is the highlight; that, plus sunburn if you didn't bring covering.

         In several places, the boat's windows offer a pasted-on Nessie silhouette. Through that silhouette, you can shoot your very own pretend "I saw Nessie" photo. Everyone does it. It's the highlight of the tour. The silhouette features a couple of arching black spines and the famously erect swan's neck topped by that fierce presumably-ancient fish-crushing head.

         I notice that Simone has cornered one of our brightest, most eager master-class students. He's from the Czech Republic. Went to Harvard. Now back in his home country, where he's set on reforming public school education. The vision: to make the Czech Republic a superstar amongst post-Communist states, which ended almost 30 years ago. He's got grant funding, which puts a warhead on his missile (to slip back into Cold War terms).

------

Sim One lectures him throughout our one-hour ride re: her disgust with politics in America. She's not bothering with photos of Nessie. He's attentive, polite, calm, respectful. He's a remedy, too, I suspect. His unremitting, much-younger Czech attention-span probably spares Simone's stomach a messy countdown.

         She is spectacularly prone to seasickness.

         More than once, within seconds, I've witnessed her explosive reactions to being afloat on any boat; on three continents.

         Even on today's prim, flat lake, aboard a tub in the Scottish Highlands, with waves no higher than careless gestures, waves less formidable than a gent's pocket square, I can easily imagine Simone collapsing on the deck, eyes rolling up, gracelessly puking without caring much, like a wan fire hose.

         So, PS: The cleaning crew for this Loch Ness tour boat wishes to thank the Czech Republic. Which I kept mistakenly calling Czechoslovakia in his presence, a political entity that dissolved peacefully on January 1, 1993. He was adoringly patient. He forgave me because I was clearly too old to castigate and my references were obsolete. My stamp collection was old, my atlas was old, my globe was old. I was an antique, too. I just needed to shut up and let the next generations have their say.