I live in Park Slope, know it? It’s one of Brooklyn’s most populated neighborhoods: home to liberals, strollers, foodies, and much more. On the weekends, I often take some time to stroll around, run some errands, and catch up with friends over brunch.
As a communications strategist and fundraiser, I’m always on the look out for interesting campaigns, appeals, and tactics. Oh, and apparently I’ve got that face. The one that says, hey, ask her for money—she’ll buy that candy bar from the kid on the subway. I’ve got that mouth too, often doing most of the talking when a telemarketer calls for a donation, shocked that I haven’t immediately hung up.
A lovely fundraising activist for Planned Parenthood
So it should come as no surprise that a young activist would think to ask me, of all the passersby on busy 7th Avenue last Sunday, if I cared about women’s rights. Well of course I do, so I stopped to engage in what quickly became an appeal for my support. A paid fundraiser for Planned Parenthood (this came up later), Mary, started by asking if I’d make a donation of $30/month for the next year. This blew me away. Maybe I give less than the average do-gooder in my community, but she could see my shock and quickly recovered. Within minutes, I was filling out the paperwork to make a more modest, one-time gift of $25.00.
