Monday, August 08, 2005
Just whom is the N&R "outing?"
Sunday's 'outing' of prospects for the Civil Rights Museum by the N&R is an example of thorough reporting by Margaret Moffett Banks. While it reported all of the right facts, however, it came to the wrong conclusions.
My thanks to David Hoggard for motivating me to go back again and read the article. Comments to his post on it were interesting, especially this comment by Karl which called to question the issue of A&T's involvement with the Museum.
For me it boiled down to that list of names. It seems strange to me, as a development professional, that a list of prospects would be created in such a way as it could be exposed to public scrutiny. Putting amounts by names when planning any kind of fund-raising effort is a normal part of what we do. And the process can seem like wishful thinking especially in the early stages. Making a gift target public before it is time to act can make a gift solicitation awkward and ill-prepared - - kind of like showing the girl the engagement ring as you are taking her out on the first date.
Because of this and some of the issues raised by Karl, I think that the N&R would be well advised to continue this line of investigation, looking at:
UPDATE: Gate City responds to the N&R's article by calling into question their reporting of the possible donors to the Museum. His points are extremely well taken and right on the mark, except that I am not convinced that the staff at A&T was all that sorry that the information got out.
Perhaps the leverage of sunshine is to them a good thing.
My thanks to David Hoggard for motivating me to go back again and read the article. Comments to his post on it were interesting, especially this comment by Karl which called to question the issue of A&T's involvement with the Museum.
For me it boiled down to that list of names. It seems strange to me, as a development professional, that a list of prospects would be created in such a way as it could be exposed to public scrutiny. Putting amounts by names when planning any kind of fund-raising effort is a normal part of what we do. And the process can seem like wishful thinking especially in the early stages. Making a gift target public before it is time to act can make a gift solicitation awkward and ill-prepared - - kind of like showing the girl the engagement ring as you are taking her out on the first date.
Because of this and some of the issues raised by Karl, I think that the N&R would be well advised to continue this line of investigation, looking at:
- How fund-raising is currently being managed
- When public funds are being used for this private project and how they are being accounted for?
- Why would the A&T staff create public documents when if they were created under the Civil Rights Museum staff's authority, they would remain private
- Why is so much of their corporate fund-raising really corporate sponsorship/business relationships? Are these charitable relationships at all?
UPDATE: Gate City responds to the N&R's article by calling into question their reporting of the possible donors to the Museum. His points are extremely well taken and right on the mark, except that I am not convinced that the staff at A&T was all that sorry that the information got out.
Perhaps the leverage of sunshine is to them a good thing.
# posted by Michael Christopher : 10:58 PM
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