Tonight's picture was taken in September of 2003. Mattie was a year and a half old and FULL of energy. My joke was that Mattie had two speeds, on and off! From the moment Mattie woke up in the morning, he was alert, engaged, and wanted you to interact with him and participate in his world and play schemes. In many ways, it was as if Mattie knew he wasn't going to be with us long, so he had to pack as much into a day as possible. Mattie, was the boy who did not like napping and and only did it as a baby.
Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.
- number of people diagnosed with the virus: 7,221,278
- number of people who died from the virus: 206,693
After 11 years of raising funds for Mattie Miracle and trying to figure out how to do this, we had a zoom call with a professional fundraiser today. Given that my background has NOTHING to do with fundraising, it truly is amazing, I think, that Mattie Miracle has grown to where it is now. Think about this this way, in our first year of operation, we brought in about $12,000 from fundraising. Now over a decade later, we are raising close to $200,000 a year. That may not sound like a big leap, but it is!
We got connected to this professional today from our own philanthropy contact at Mattie's hospital. This is a colleague of our contact, who left working for a hospital system to run her own consulting business. Needless to say this consultant is well versed in health care and cancer to be specific. Hiring someone to work with us is a process. It has to be a good fit. This consultant knew this without us even saying anything! So that to me speaks to her sensitivity and extensive experience helping other non-profits. For Peter and I, Mattie Miracle is very personal and to come into our fold means that first you too must be passionate about enhancing cancer care. In addition, what both of us noticed today on the call was the consultant wasn't jumping to solutions. She wasn't claiming to know what we do, nor was she claiming to know how we should do it better! She is an outstanding listener, but also very adept at understanding the situation, and providing guidance and direction.
As we move into the next decade of Mattie Miracle's work, it makes sense to work with a professional development executive. I found it fascinating to hear her insights on Mattie Miracle. Because she says many non-profits are waffling in their vision, mission, objectives and goals. Whereas we do not have a lack of content, nor do we ever drift from our mission. I sometimes take that for granted, but she pointed this out, as she finds many organizations hire her for this alone. Peter and I have a vision for the next 5-10 years and we were able to articulate that to her in the meeting. Her initial reaction was that there are individuals and other Foundations within our community who may interested in partnering with us. Which of course is exactly our goal!
We also want her to assess our current fundraising events. Because we need feedback on their strengths and weaknesses. How they can be tweaked or what we should consider adding. The wonderful part about this was hearing from a professional that some of the frustrations we have experienced with events are not uncommon. She feels the issues aren't us, our message, or our content. The issue is that we are not targeting people (major gift donors) to our events who are truly passionate about the cause. It was very insightful and I look forward to learning how to find these individuals.
I also asked her for an opinion on working with student interns to help with fundraising and marketing, and she laughed. Which confirmed my thinking all along. As a former educator, I love students, but I am also aware of their competing priorities, their insights, and their limited time to commit to certain tasks that require attention to detail and persistence. I am happy we are now in a position to seek the advice of a professional and of course it is my hope that this will be a good fit, that ultimately benefits the Foundation.
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