Our hackathon last Saturday was awesome. You can read all about the day and our students projects here.
We were lucky to have Fred Wilson stop by and check out our student projects. During his visit, we had a long conversation about fundraising. Fred blogged about it here.
One thing that really stuck out to me about our conversation was that strategies we use and challenges we face with fundraising are incredibly similar. The biggest difference between us is that Fred has many more connections than me and has the ability to access people that I am not able to at this point in my life and career.
Fred is still hustling though. He's getting out there, pounding the pavement, getting his pitch down and doing his best to figure out how to inspire people to get involved with computer science education. He's doing the long, hard and necessary work for something he believes in.
This took me by surprise. I think very highly of Fred, and kind of automatically assumed that his reputation and credibility would make fundraising a cake walk. The reality is that it's not and will never be. People like Fred are so successful because they never stop hustling.
--
Speaking of fundraising - ScriptEd is nearly half way to its holiday fundraising goal. Please consider making a donation here!
Fundraising is a nut that I also have not been able to crack. We still run program to program, hand to mouth.
ReplyDeletePart of me is surprised at the difficulty in fundraising for education but then again, as a 25 year veteran teacher, maybe I'm not. It's always a lot easier to talk the talk than walk the walk and it's just as easy for a company to dump money into a not-so-good charity because the mechanism is set and the "cause" has some good PR than to dig deep and give where and how it's really needed.
Of course the hustle, willingness to be on street level, and a desire to dig into the truth of what's going on are some of the things that make Fred so special and as a community we're lucky he's a voice and a presence. I'm guessing he'd be happier if he were the norm and not the exception.