Fundraising

Argh, I can’t believe how much Henry’s analytical skills have deteriorated. I was gonna comment on his last slam on Dave, when he went on and on about what was obvious (Saddam is evil) and glossed over Dave’s crucial point (not *all* Iraqis would prefer U.S. invasion to Saddam’s rule. Many of course. Most probably. Not all. That’s empirically true, right? When you see stuff like suicide bombers even now when the outcome has pretty much been settled.).

Anyway, dunno how you can read a post and miss the whole point. Making money is of course *not* the point. That should be clear from what I said. It was essentially a team building exercise, part of missions training. I guess I shouldn’t have called it a fundraiser, fine, maybe that was what confused Henry. But yes, that was beside the point and we all knew that. That’s why when I say it was successful being profitable is at the very end of the list.

So yes, in light of what it was, of course it was profitable. It more than covered costs. Actually, it was the most profitable car wash I’d been a part of, which was surprising, because it was a “free” car wash. So the point was missions training. We all recognized that. In the process, we took in more than we spent to do it. That’s profitable.

Henry’s right about car washes and bake sales not being effective. What I want to know though is what is a good fundraiser. Why the working at McDonald’s thing is a valid baseline I don’t get. Because while it’s true, it’s practically infeasible. You can’t get 20 people from church to work at McDonald’s for 4 hours on a Saturday. So yes, the church would raise more funds that way but the church can’t do that. So what should the church do?

I’m still into direct deposit of tithes, by the way. I think I’m gonna raise it with our pastors tonight.