By Elaine McLevie | Vice President, Board of Directors
Each year the Board of Directors of the Episcopal Refugee Network of San Diego reviews what objectives we have met in the previous year, and what we have achieved. Our most urgent need in the past two years has been to raise the funds to employ two more refugee workers who speak one or more of the languages of the most recent arrivals.
The need for the services we provide has continued to increase, but our fundraising methods have not changed as much as we had planned. We set out to remedy that two years ago, and signed up for our first bonus day effort being run by Global Giving. We advised our donors well in advance and stirred up support, including arranging for three particular donors to be ready to donate at the earliest time possible. We arranged for our website to carry the information about how to donate via Global Giving, by sending very specific information to our web master, and we had in place a telephone list to urge our supporters on.
Imagine our puzzlement when no donations early in the process appeared. Then we received a message from our accountant to say thay we had received several donations from our home web page. We checked and found a small error, which was intended to help donors, but which rerouted them. By this time it was well after mid-day and we had lost the very impetus we thought we had planned for so carefully.
Why hadn't we checked our web site well in advance of the day? We had lost sight of one very small detail, because we did not think of it. We had, on previous occasions when we were using an unfamiliar process, made sure that the system worked, by havinging one of us donate first, in case of surprises. We now know that every little piece of preparation needs to be checked off and tested, and a list for that purpose now has much more on it that we just might forget!
As we are a very largely volunteer organization, and rely entirely on donations and grants, we appreciate our being a partner with Global Giving, and value the generosity of you, our donors. Please tell us what you like about our reports and what you would like to know about, that you have not seen in them. We will not be participating in the upcoming bonus day, but please look for us in the end of year giving, in December.
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