on poor fundraising

I saw a woman on the street today with a box of candy bars.  Not any old candy bars, but "World's Finest" Candy bars.  The ones parents all over the tri-state area lug into work to sell to eager colleagues for their kids' school fundraising.  I saw the box, and felt just a little sick.  The box mocked me, stared back at me through layers of foil and deliciosness and said, "and you call yourself a fundraiser?".  Ok, it probably didn't say anything, but that's how I felt.  Because I may have worked in Development (that's fancy speak for fundraising) for the past eight years, but I used to be the worst fundraiser ever.

I was given these boxes of chocolate to sell on several different occasions in middle school.  But because I was a sugar crazed and kind of chubby kid who had very little portion control, I had a problem keeping the boxes of individually wrapped $1 bars in my room.  I'm not sure why I didn't hand the box over to my parents to bring into their work to sell like everyone else did, maybe I was struck with some strange code of ethic where I thought I was the one who was responsible for the actual raising of funds, selling of chocolate, but, either way, I failed: over a period of a few weeks, I ate most of the chocolate and paid myself back with my saved up babysitting money.  I repeat, I fundraised for myself from myself.

Pretty sad, but still not as bad as those times when I didn't turn in the change* that I had collected in my UNICEF boxes on Halloween-that's another confession for another day.

*I know, I know, that change was to help put an end to children's suffering around the world and not for me, I know, I'm awful, I get it. OK, fine, I'll go make a donation to UNICEF right now, I feel guilty enough as it is without you looking at me like that!