I have never been good at soliciting donations. I have never felt comfortable doing it. In fact, I have never liked for people to ask *me* for donations, and so turning the tables on them is really something I have a hard time doing.
So as I approach these last few days before the Washington D.C. 3-day, I find myself short of my minimum by $145. Partly because I didn't get a couple of fundraising events underway that I had in mind back when I signed up for the walk, but mostly because I was very poor at asking people to make donations.
I did not send out any hard copy letters. I sent only one email letter to my address book full of contacts, way back in April. I did not solicit from any local businesses. I didn't even ask all of my friends, because my team mates and I have the same friends and I did not want to pressure those same folks into donating to all of the team members.
I am very grateful that I have received the donations I've received. Don't get me wrong - many of those donations came in as a direct response to my first email plea. So I'm aware that solicitations do work. But many of the donations I've received have come in because I've simply put the word out that I'm doing this walk, and people have volunteered to be generous. I got the word out via this blog, via a tag line on my email signature block, and via facebook. These media are much more comfortable to me than the direct "sales pitch".
But now that I'm close to the walk itself, and I'm short on funds, I've had to bite the bullet and send more pleas for donations. I spent quite a bit of time tonight composing and sending email letters to folks that I contacted way back but who had not yet responded. It took a lot of nerve to send those out - and if you received one, I hope you understand that it's not in my nature to "beg for money".
But this is, after all, a fundraising event. And so I did it. But I didn't like doing it.
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