The next generation of Fundraisers are being trained at Tribeca Flashpoint Academy. Howard Tullman President/CEO makes sure all of his students are job ready and that includes job ready fundraisers for nonprofit institutions.
I truly believe that everyone of us needs to retrain our brains for this generation of fundraising realities. SPOILER--My 9 year old grandson and his friends are producing and publishing, on youtube, Thomas the Tank Engine videos with a musical background. These little guys are the next generation of ...storytellers?
Smart fundraisers are now hiring savvy content managers rather than public relations/marketing people.
These student produced videos demonstate the importance of media but also the content and context in your fundraising story. To quote Tullman, "Content is king but context is kong."
Embrace your fears. GO FOR IT 
Elements included in the Tribeca Flashpoint Academy student project.
public service announcements
games
interviews
social networking
live events
http://youtu.be/4u3HrtMKyo4
“In terms of shaping our society, it is significant that more adults give to charity than give to political candidates, than vote, or than are required to pay federal taxes on their income,” said Patrick Rooney, executive director of The Center on Philanthropy in Indianapolis, Ind.”
Threats and trends in the nonprofit enterprise.
So how much money do donors give to charity.?
According to the Giving USA 2010 Annual Report.
"Adjusted for inflation, total giving exceeded $280 billion a year every year for the past decade and surpassed $290 billion in six of the last seven years. This tells us that despite personal and economic hardship, Americans remain steadfastly committed to each other and their communities. Philanthropy is at the heart of who we are as a society, and it is undeterred, if occasionally deferred by hardship."
As a fund raiser are you relying on the same old income streams? The number of dollars given in a year may not change dramatically but how the dollars are given is very important. The old business reply envelop (BRE) Rolodex and stamps are quickly going the way of the grocery coupons you can cut out in the Chicago Tribune. Think Groupon.
When an earthquake hit Peru last year, the anti-hunger group Oxfam America blasted e-mail appeals to 400,000 people within 24 hours. The digital plea raised $355,000 within days, a sharp contrast to mailed appeals that used to take as long as 10 days to reach potential donors. "That was a lot more expensive, and it took so long that the information was already out-of-date by the time the people received it," says Stephanie Kurzina, an Oxfam vice president. USA TODAY 4/9/09 The New Face of Giving
Fundwell Academy students are forward thinking and understand the use of many sources of funds.
Do Your Donors Have Empathy For Your Cause? Recent research at the University of Chicago has shown that rats have empathy for their fellow rats just as we can empathise for each other. Empathy translates into pro-social helping behavior. This is something we want all of our donors to have. As fundraisers it is important to create an emotional contagion of pain.
For example: a child sobbing because they can not read because they don't see what their classmates see. In this case a picture can be worth a thousand words. Show what the words look like to a dyslexic child.
To read the original article and watch the research video just follow this URL
http://news.uchicago.edu/ article/2011/12/08/helping- your-fellow-rat-rodents-show- empathy-driven-behavior "When we act without empathy we are acting against our biological inheritance," says co-author Peggy Mason