The Paying of The Pipers

It is good that we have volunteers with the range of talents that we do. I am not a good fundraiser. I am a bad fundraiser. I am a very bad fundraiser.

We are a 501(c)5 non profit breed conservation program. We have never turned any participant away for lack of ability to pay program fees. We are all volunteers with no paid staff. Our hay bill runs from over four thousand to six thousand dollars a month.

So we are about to launch a significant fundraising effort. Keep your eyes open for how you can help out. I cannot tell you yet what wee are going to do in this effort, but I am authorized to tell you what we are not going to do.

I was asked to come up with some incentives for donors to encourage the largest donations possible. I worked diligently in coming up with a list of incentives/rewards. The committee rejected each of them.

These are incentives that will not be part of our fundraising drive:

1. For a gift of $500.00 your name will be placed on a plaque on a tree in our new land.
2. For a gift of $750.00 we will spell your name correctly.
3. For a gift of $200.00 we will feature a picture of you posing with your grandchildren in our
quarterly newsletter.
4. For a gift of $300.00 we will feature a picture of you posing with my grandchildren in our quarterly newsletter. (The difference in the attractiveness of my grand children over your grand children is worth at least the extra hundred dollars)
5. For a gift of $1,000.00 my wife and daughters will spend a week observing you as you go about your day to day living and will explain to you each and everything you are doing wrong.
6. For a gift of $2,500.00 they will only observe you for one day.

After carefully considering this incentive program the committee chose to go another route.

Keep your eyes open as this program is announced. Out program is unique. We preserve nearly extinct strains of Colonial Spanish horses and we turn lives around. And we teach. And we learn. And we train. And we play music. And we heal. And we work. And we grow. 

And in a few more days I am going to get serious and let you know how you can be a part of everything that we do.