[Mpls] FW: Financial contributions to the City of Minneapolis

[Matty Lang]

   My apologies for the cut and paste technical error.  This should be easier to read--and to challenge.  
  
  Thanks to Patrick for the helpful information.  And thanks to Sheldon for the great  suggestion.  Minneapolis  can rest assured that the check is in the mail as soon as this months' payroll  clears--Monday for sure.  Don't expect  much, however, as my gift will be based on my ability to pay.  No  matter how many times I ask them, my financial institution of choice  (sorry Bill, it has the word 'union' in its name!) will unfortunately  not allow me to write checks that my account can't cash. 
  
   
                  There  are a number of reasons--with which I will not bore this list--for my  desire to make a financial contribution to the city.  The  main reason is so that the next time a friend (or foe), during a  rational conversation about the state of our city, suggests that I  should volunteer to have my "taxes" raised to foot the bill for a  better X,  I can reply that I've been  there and done that.  On to the next idea  please. 
  
   
                  The suggestion that voluntary contributions are equal to  taxes is false.  As we learned long ago  (Was there a School House Rock tune on taxes and if so what was the tone?  I  don't remember) taxes are involuntary assessments while contributions  are voluntary gifts also going by the name of donations.  No  matter how hard our governor tried to convince us otherwise in the  recent past, taxes are like fees especially in the sense that one is  expected to pay.  By their very nature  donations are not expected; they are asked for on top of normal  expectations and thusly are not given at a high rate.  
                  Many organizations ask for donations.  That's the number one reason that individuals  and businesses give donations--because somebody asked them to give.  Minnesotans (especially Minneapolitans) are  very generous with their giving.  For  this, I commend all of the givers in this list's membership.  The state offers us the chance each year to  make a financial contribution in addition to our tax assessment.  They make this offer in writing.  In other words, they ask us to  contribute.  Without  checking the stats, I'll bet the house (I really don't like to gamble)  that less than 10% of us generous Minnesotans take the state up on its  offer.  Granted, this is a weak ask as the  state would increase their compliance rate by investing in a more  elaborate relationship building program for prospective donors, but is  this what it or the City of Minneapolis should be spending its time and  resources doing?  I argue no.   Patrick  confirmed my suspicion that the city
 needs to expend considerable  resources to properly process a donation--even an unsolicited donation.  Most  effective organizations work to reduce their fundraising overhead as  the city (us) does by assessing taxes rather than organizing bake sales.   This allows the city to efficiently collect its (our collective)  resources. 
                  So how much does   Minneapolis  take in each year in donations?  In  the spirit of brevity I won't trot out the census stats to do the math,  but in my nine plus years of fundraising from individuals and  businesses the average gift of a first time donors is in the $20-$25  range while donors who already have a giving history with the  organization average in the $30-$40 range.  For  most organizations these averages are achieved by soliciting many small  contributions and a very few large contributions--based on the givers'  ability to pay.  These  donors, of course, were asked to give.   The City of Minneapolis  has not asked anyone to make a donation to my knowledge so we'll  drastically drop the 10% giving rate to 5% for these purposes.   One doesn't even need to do the math to   imagine what we could NOT fund  with a donation mechanism in Minneapolis.    
  
  
      Matty Lang,
  Not usually making random donations in Central
  

		
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