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How to “lock up” your donors like Britney Spears
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How to “lock up” your donors like Britney Spears

But unlike Britney, they’ll actually *want* to stay in your fundraising “jail cell”!

Sep 29, 2021
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Not too long ago, I watched a documentary that everyone was talking about about Britney Spears.

My verdict?

I didn’t think much of the documentary tbh.

But two things specifically stuck out to me as I was watching:

First, as an olderish millennial, I find the cultural zeitgeist we’re living in to be interesting.

Specifically, pop culture and online culture seemed to be really obsessed about critically examining the 90s in ways that have never been done before. 

Part of it is because Millennials are just getting older and want to examine people and events that they had little––if any––understanding of at the time.

That’s why more and more you’re seeing documentaries about people O.J. Simpson, R. Kelly, Michael Jackson…

...as well as docs about the 1995 massacre of the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas, the 1992 LA riots, the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, and Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky (which isn’t new so much as the chattering classes have now decided is bad).

And of course, Brittney Spears.

But that’s just some “penny for your thoughts” social commentary on my part.

The second thing that stood out to me––and the whole reason for this email was the subject.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s all about how for the past 10 years or whatever Brittney’s been in something called “voluntary conservatorship,” which is just fancy schmancy legal term for her Dad who now basically controls all her finances and her life.

So I got to thinking, what would it be like if nonprofits could be their donors in a similar situation.

Specifically, what if you could get your donors to lock themselves up their own sort of voluntary conservatorship.

Or let’s just call it “voluntary jail.” 

In this voluntary jail, your donors:

  • Want you to send them your fundraising appeals so they can donate, and will actually angrily call or write to you if they don’t get the chance to fund your organization's mission.

  • Will become your unpaid RECRUITERS (without being asked to) who ask their family, friends, and social media followers to generously support your mission by gleefully forward your fundraising appeals to others.

  • Can supply you dozens, hundreds, even thousands of genuine and heartfelt testimonials about importance of the cause(s) you’re fighting for, and that your organization is the ONLY one in the world who can do this work.

More:

In this “voluntary jail,” you don’t just have donors, you have rabid-dog fans (like Brittney does) who don’t just support you with contributions––they fall IN LOVE with you and make your organization part of their IDENTITY.

Sound far-fetched? 

It shouldn’t. 

Because it’s actually part of the “standard operating procedure” practiced by so many leftwing nonprofits who, I’m sorry to say, just completely blow past most libertarian/free market nonprofits.

Just organizations like Black Lives Matter, which, though it makes some good points about police brutality, is a thoroughly Marxist organization that calls the complete and total abolition of private property, capitalism, and even the family!

And yet, it’s so good at shaping the narrative that it has gotten some of America’s richest billionaires and corporations to stand behind it.

It’s gotten big city political machines to rename boulevards and plazas after it.

And it has made life completely miserable for any individual or group who express even the slightest criticism of it in the media, or even in private conversations!

If that’s not having a fan-fueled fundraising and power base, then I don’t know what is.

And, of course, as a boulder-ribbed libertarian I would never want any organization I’m writing copy for to do anything like that to people.

But it does go to show just how powerful these media and fundraising forces can be when harnessed.

-David

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