What's the point in having a blog if you don't write in it? Silly bear, it's time for me to add some words to the page. The catharsis of writing begins to flow.
The most exciting event of late is at work. It happened yesterday afternoon, mid-mail opening. As a novice fundraiser learning the tricks and trades of asking for money and building relationships, my confidence in my ability to perform this salesman-seeming role is not astonishingly high. But that's okay since my fundraising activities, though vital, produce the smallest amount of moolah out of all fundraising methods employed in our little foundation. However, it has the largest numbers, with the bulk of our donors being communicated with through my channels. I manage the direct mail campaigns, the website, and basic donor communication (surveys, results reporting, etc.). We have two fundraising campaigns per year--season tickets (I came just at the end of the 2010 season ticket campaign) and End of Financial Year (the Australian financial year is from July1-June 30--weird, but so be it). The End of Financial Year campaign is my first fundraising campaign ever and so far it's going well. Really well.
It started with a draft letter and suggested segments for mailing lists (donors, lapsed donors, prospects, etc.). Then pulling mailing lists, trying to remove people who have multiple records, trying to separate out the VIPs from the everyday Joes, and getting the letter approved (and re-drafted) by my boss, the general manager, and the artistic directors (whose names are actually appear on the letter). Then comes work with the mailing house, finding more people with multiple records (seriously people, can we possibly have just one record per person?!), more letter revision, and finally--IT HITS! Genius, happiness, the letters have reached the masses!
But then of course there's personalization for the VIPs...anyway, it's a process. Our fundraising budget was a conservative $10,000 more than the amount raised by this campaign last year. That target was reached over a week ago. Yesterday we exceeded our target by 50%. It's the most successful fundraising campaign we've had. Ever!
Needless to say, if I used the word stoked, I would use it here. Rejoice! My first venture in fundraising has been an absolute success! Doubt remains as to whether this had much to do with my management of the mailing and I'm more inclined to believe that it has to do with how happy people are with the Company right now. To be honest, that's probably the case (with such famous artistic directors, who could argue?).
Admittedly, though, I do feel pride in the success. I've opened and processed every single donation that has come in the door. I've pestered our receptionist for the mail each morning, eagerly anticipating the day's intake, loving the small notes that come in here and there ("You're all doing a marvelous job!" and "I'm happy to enclose a donation" etc.). I have relished and astonished in the larger donations, dumb-founded as I typed in the largest single donation of $25,000 (oh what it would be like to put that on my credit card...or even to have that within my credit's limits!). It's been a great process, putting this project together from the beginning and seeing it through to its end. I'm particularly excited to start the analysis to see where this increase has come from.
That's my biggest excitement of the week! Other things I've been up to lately? A few weeks ago, I flew to Melbourne with a couple of gal pals for a weekend of shopping and indulgence. Melbourne has a reputation in Australia for culture, shopping, food, and in general is considered the "cool" city--with good reasoning. The city has character. It's full of laneways and secret doors, with restaurants, cafes and clubs hidden from the unobservant eye. In fact, you have to know exactly where you're going in order to find what you're looking for! If I hadn't been lead by the hand the whole weekend by the gals I came with, I wouldn't have experienced the wonders of Melbourne--I would have ignorantly passed them by, utterly and completely. (Sounds a little pretentious, huh? It was actually fun, kind of like a treasure hunt!)
We arrived late Friday night and headed out to a Mexican restaurant called Mamasita's. We found the address, which was merely a door with a bouncer sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Nothing to suggest restaurant, nothing to lead you to believe there was a delightful restaurant inside. He let us in and we proceeded up the stairs to find a great open space bustling with activity and wonderful smells. Surprisingly, we were seated after five minutes and ate some tasty, Australianized modern Mexican food. Very happy belly.
Afterward, we decided to check out one of the "cool" Melbourne bars called The Supper Club. That was literally a wooden door, address above, with no indication of what lies within. Trepidatious ones would hesitate to open the door to see what's inside, but we made our way in in that overly confident way that only comes from trying to seem like you know what you're doing. :) Up another set of stairs and we were in yet another great space with mismatched and hard wood furniture, multiple sets of staircases, and a great arching window up the front. We crazy ladies settled in for hot chocolate and tea which immediately pushed us over the edge into a full-blown food coma. So we went to our hotel and went to sleep.
The next day, we had breakfast in a cute little cafe down some laneway or other (think about the alleyways in your city, then imagine that all kinds of cool places to eat and drink lurk within and you'll get the idea of where we spent most of our weekend!). This was followed by shopping (their shops are pretty much the same as Sydney, so I'm not entirely sure where this whole "shopping is better in Melbourne" idea comes from) and thankfully by more hot chocolate. We stopped at this place called Kokoblack which had the most amazing chocolate menu I've ever seen. After much deliberating (and taking into account that it was freezing outside), I decided on a classic hot chocolate--with cinnamon. Easily one of the best hot chocolates I've ever had.
Next in order was a bit more shopping, then coffee to keep the energy in a forward movement. We slightly gussied ourselves up for a night out and headed down our hotel's own little laneway to Comme for drinks. Then to dinner at Movida, a popular Spanish restaurant currently in its heyday. After that we went to Madame Brussels, a bar tucked on the third floor (that you have to enter through yet another unassuming door and an even more unassuming elevator) of some random building downtown. The bar itself is the indoors version of someone's garden, complete with lawn furniture, astro turf, and waiters dressed as preppy country club boys. Hilarious.
I ended the night with an impromptu catch-up with my second-favorite Australian, Banana Ben, my old northern Argentina travel buddy. We reminisced about our traveling days, talked about our boys, then said good night, promising to keep in touch when we're in each others' cities.
Sunday....well, Sunday we probably could have done without. We were all tired and cranky (think teenage girls after a slumber party, when they've spent just a little too much time together) and spent most of our day shopping...doing too much shopping...and walking around...and more walking...and will this walking ever stop...when does our flight leave...7:00 pm?!...oh lord...I want a nap...
We arrived at the airport far too early for our flight, too tired to do anything but try to go home. I sat in my own little world, reading (House of Spirits by Isabel Allende), trying to follow the book and trying to not devolve into a tired, angry child, willing Marcus to get to the airport (he spent the weekend with his brother in Melbourne as well) and give me a hug.
Marcus, classic laid-back boy that he is, arrived 10 minutes before we boarded our flight. And again, classic Marcus, got upgraded to an emergency exit seat. Oh the luxury of leg room.
I, on the other hand, was sitting with the girls, my nose deeply buried in my book trying to keep my composure for another hour longer. What can I say, I cry when I'm really tired, but unless provoked, the crying will take place when I'm finally by myself. Buuuuuuuut it basically waited until Marcus and I were alone in the taxi line and I finally let out the little girl tantrum of how tired I was, how three is a bad number (it is), and how I wish we'd left earlier. I slept well that night. :)
Oh Melbourne. You've got such great secrets hidden up your sleeves. I will go there again, but I think I'll go alone with Marcus. We'll dabble in the arts scene, we'll visit some more of the "cool" bars and we'll skip along the streets together.
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