Even though you can still spot a few happy little piles of rogue confetti that managed to outsmart the clean-up team after the FundRaising Success Gold Awards for Direct-Mail Excellence, we’re already about to launch our next awards effort — the 2006 Fundraising Professional of the Year competition.
The pumps are working again, belching putrid water out of New Orleans and back into Lake Ponchatrain. There was even a parade on Bourbon Street. But at this writing, America was still falling asleep to nightly images of bloated corpses, starving animals, armed patrols floating on boats through rivers that once were the streets of this country’s most joyous and charmingly decadent town, and the weary, misguided people who wouldn’t leave it.
What a grand time. FundRaising Success ventured into the tricky awards arena for the first time this year. And even though it was all new to us, it was a terrific experience from start to finish. We had a better-than-expected showing — 33 packages in all, submitted by 10 agencies and two organizations — a small but enthusiastic group of judges and a lot of fun.
It comes as no surprise that the hot topic of conversation whenever development pros gather these days — whether at a conference, a cocktail party or the water cooler — is the impending postal and legislative changes affecting nonprofit fundraising.
I admit it: I’m a dieter. If you could get paid for losing weight — or, more precisely, trying to lose weight — I would be part of the uppermost echelon of professional weight-loss superstars. I would lead my class in picking apart books, Web sites and the gray matter of medical professionals in search of the (drumroll, please) Keys to Weight Loss Success.
