Here We Are ... Again

Fundraising conferences big and small all seem to still be featuring sessions that focus on fundraising lessons learned from last year's earthquake in Haiti — and rightfully so. Yet here we are facing another major natural disaster — last week's devastating earthquake in Japan and the far-reaching tsunami that ensued.

Once again, fundraisers and organizations of all types from all over the United States have jumped into disaster mode and are ensuring that victims in all of the affected areas are getting the help they need.

Time will tell whether the lessons learned from Haiti, which the fundraising sector has been chewing on for more than a year now, will prove to be effective in the wake of what happened in Japan.

Certainly, the playing field wasn't equal pre-quake. The Japanese vs. Haitian economies can't even be compared. After a disaster of this magnitude, of course victims need help — no matter where the devastation occurred. But how will Japan's economic standing pre-quake affect the desire to help on the part of the American public? Will the same messages that tugged so deeply at donors' hearts after the Haiti earthquake have the same effect this time around?

What do you think, fundraisers? How will the ideas gleaned from the Haiti earthquake — you know, all those tips you've heard about at the conferences you've attended or read about in publications like FundRaising Success — play into the fundraising efforts that were launched after the ground shook in Japan? Which of them are universal enough to work in either case? What's different? Leave a comment here or e-mail me at mbattistelli@napco.com

Blessings,
Margaret