Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to re: Manacles

Secure funding can be kind of important.
Mary Anne — (archived)

We don't have that.

I find that people think that if something is free, it is without value. This is especially true of people who have money, which is why I've begun to charge refundable deposits for attendance at certain programs where we need active participation to make them run.

I find that the people in neighboring districts that have a dedicated tax still use volunteers, still get sizable donations, and have more materials and activities to offer than we do. Fortunately, we have more talent, so it works out, sort of. But we're all very tired.

I find that we already have to have people devoted to development (also known as "beating the bushes for money"), which is another way of saying "consultant", but paid every month. And we spend on marketing already.

I find that we have lost good people who love it here because we can't afford to pay them what they need.

That is my reality. It would be really nice to know, from year to year, that we will have enough to pay the electric bill. Especially when we have to comply with state standards that they do not fund.

We are the last stop for some people in our community, but the only stop for others. I guess I could place a dollar value on who is more important as far as meting out services, but I wasn't raised that way, and it would conflict with our mission.

Your experience is that rich people are virtuous and poor people are venal. Mine is that poor people are needy and rich people are stingy. You don't get to be rich by giving money away. They will spend half an hour justifying why they should not be required to pay the replacement cost for a brand new book that their child destroyed. I have little hope of running department of this size, with the vital services it provides, based solely on charity when I can't get people to pry open their wallets and pay the $15.00 they owe in property damage.

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