We aren't upset when Paramount makes a $200 million movie that flops, but if a charity experiments with a $5 million fundraising event that fails, we call in the attorneys. So charities are petrified of trying bold new revenue-generating endeavors and can't develop the powerful learning curves the for-profit sector can.
Almost no one under 60 remembers what fundraising was like before Watergate. Until the 1970s, campaign money was collected by "bagmen," familiar characters from the world of organized crime. As fans of Boardwalk Empire know, a bagman is a political fixer who walked around with stacks of $100 and $1,000 bills. At lower levels, he used brown paper bags. In presidential campaigns, the cash was more likely to be in briefcases. Classier that way.
I don't know a politician who enjoys fundraising. The system is such that the American people have lost faith.
You're getting to know who the great chefs are through their books.
In no way, shape, manner, or form could the conservative movement or a conservative, a Burkean conservative could never, ever vote for some low-life like Donald Trump. It might affect their fundraising, which they need. It might affect their cruises, which they need. There could be any number of reasons for it, but in their minds it's rooted in principle.
Giving money effectively is almost as hard as earning it in the first place.
You now have six-year campaigns for the Senate - you never stop running. It's not uncommon for a member of the Senate to have a fundraising breakfast, a fundraising lunch and a fundraising dinner, and then when the Senate breaks for the week to go home, more fundraisers. And that's driven by the cost of campaigning.
This is pure speculation, but for a period of time, a lot of getting into a party was through fundraising and volunteer work, and Republican women had more time to do that than democratic women, who were out there getting jobs.
I get a lot of emails from entrepreneurs. The best ones are short, to the point and include some question andor the product
I didn't understand how much senators and members of the House are not able to represent the people because they're too busy fundraising to maintain their seat in office. I hope we as a country start looking at how we can change that.
Few actions of consequence in the world have been accomplished without passion.
I worked for Hillary [Clinton] when I was young - when she was running for the Senate. I was fundraising and things, I see all of these people as political in a way that isn't humanistic. I'm just watching and hoping that someone is going to distinguish himself or herself as comprehending what we need.
Rick Santorum beat Mitt Romney in three states on Tuesday. Got a huge amount of fundraising. That's the good news for Rick Santorum. The bad news: people are now Googling 'Santorum. '
Everyone wants charities to spend as little as possible on overhead. That's backwards. Overhead is what drives growth. If charities can't grow, they can't solve problems. So overhead is a good thing. And I'm overhead.
Every politician just has to remember how he got his position in the first place. A young candidate running for Congress or any outsider interested in public office could only achieve his goals by relying on soft power. They could not force anyone to vote for them. They needed to convince their potential voters, they needed to do fundraising, they needed to be attractive candidates.
The only thing that we know about financial predictions of start-ups is that 100 percent of them are wrong
I have tried raising money by asking for it, and by not asking for it. I always got more by asking for it.
If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them.
I started, with three friends, this website called Crowdrise that's sort of the Facebook for personal philanthropy, a place where anybody can have a permanent microsite of their own to stage creative fundraising projects for the charities and causes that they care about. And we did it with serious intent but without any ambition.
Our fundraising went up about a thousand percent and that's largely been sustained.