FundRaiser Blog

We moved into our tiny cottage in town on February 24th, probably the bleakest time of year in the Ozarks. The bright palette of Autumn was long gone and only a few tattered brown remnants of Summer’s glory clung defiantly to their spindly branches. Our lawn was a barren rocky wasteland and an untidy collection of shrubs, vines and adolescent trees spanned the back property line. I was determined to tear out that eyesore at the first possible chance. I envisioned a neat privacy fence with dwarf fruit trees artfully espaliered against it..

But time has a way of slipping by and this spring seemed to move in fast forward. That “useless” collection of wildness has burst forth with life. The sweet pink blooms of the redbud were followed by delicate edible pods. Honeysuckle and wild grape twine among the shrubbery. Thorny blackberry stems push infant fruit toward the sun. There is even a half buried mulberry tree laden with tiny pale green fruit.

This week has been much more like a normal Ozark spring with cool crisp mornings and warm gentle afternoons. The frantic pace of the past few weeks has slowed to a lazy crawl and the succession of blooms and leaves is no longer a blur. The blackberries have put forth their snowy blossoms, flirting with the bees that so admire them. They are short lived, each day shedding their tender wreath of petals to leave only the bristly globe that will, in time, become a glossy blackberry.

I suppose the best part of this season is the anticipation it inspires. In my mind’s eye I see neat garden beds overflowing with a riot of tomatoes, squash, beans and peppers. Those blackberry blossoms are destined to become fragrant ebony jam. The mint that is threatening to overflow its pot will become next winter’s sweet hot tea.

Anticipation can be a very powerful tool to inspire enthusiasm for an event as well. Once your event or activity is well planned, let your donors know about it with Fundraiser’s Mass Mailing function. By using the FundRaiser Word Processor to create personalized letters and emails and sending them out at the appropriate time, you can arouse interest and excitement about your organization and your endeavors..

The tender green of spring have matured into the rich emerald of summer here in the Ozarks. Seeds started two weeks ago have pushed their way through the dark soil and spread hungry leaves into the sunshine and fresh air. My sturdy young tomato starts release the pungent odor of summer when touched and the baby dill begins to uncurl the lacy leaves of maturity. It is nearly time to remove them from their small sheltered nursery and let them dig their roots deep into the wide open earth. Yet I have no idea where to put them. I need a plan.

A plan will help me to have an efficient, productive garden rather then a rampant tangle of weeds and poor sickly plants. During the planning process, I will asses the necessary conditions for the plants I am caring for, the limitations and strengths of my space, and match each plant to the best place I have for it. Perhaps the most important part of planning my garden is assessing how well the plan worked and how it could have worked better. Each year, I should have increased success.

Events are a lot like gardens. Without a plan they quickly get out of hand, a tangled mess of mistakes and forgotten items. 

One girl’s chore is another girl’s pleasure… it’s really just a matter of perspective. I’ve been doing a lot of walking lately. We recently moved to a tiny cottage less than three blocks from the FundRaiser office. It actually takes me less time to walk to work now than it does to drive. Being primarily a country girl, I’ve never before had this luxury of being able to walk to where I need to be. There’s amazing freedom in knowing I don’t have to fret about a three cent gasoline price hike. 

Economics aside, there’s another joy in walking that I never imagined. I see things in a different way. This morning I noticed the tiny oak leaves spreading in the sun over the alley, each one a perfect miniature of its grown-up self, untouched by bug or storm. This afternoon I walked through nodding pallid globes, all that is left of this morning’s bold yellow dandelions, and watched as they released their feathery children into the world. I heard the musical drone of honeybees as they ambled among the fragrant blooming lilac branches. Had I been in my car, I would have missed all of this.

Just as it took a change in my routine for me to realize I was missing so much, it is very easy to “get in a rut” in how you do things in your FundRaiser database.

We’ve had a few days of gentle rain, slowly soaking our rocky Ozark soil to the brim. Water rushes merrily in all the little wet weather streams that chuckle downhill in frothy exuberance. A golden sun blazed forth this morning among billowing clouds and the muted colors of the past few days were transformed into vibrant greens glittering with sparkling jewels of dew.

Everything is growing by leaps and bounds now. The wooly sage colored leaves and tiny purple flowers of henbit push brazenly toward the sun while vivid purple violets bow modestly amid their leafy rosettes. I cringe at mowing such lovely plants, but something must be done to keep them in check lest they take over the entire lawn and push out their more timid cousins.

Since this is the final week of Spring Cleaning, I thought a quick lesson on “weeding” out your old Codes would be in order. Codes, especially Category Codes, can certainly grow like weeds in your database obscuring the codes you use frequently and making it time consuming to create reports.

The weather has been delightful this week, certainly more like June than March in the Ozarks. Warm fragrant days are interposed with nights of crashing thunderstorms and fresh rain. Plants are pushing through the rocky soil with wild abandon. The blooming pear trees rain white petals and reveal slender branches clad in delicate spring green. A few intrepid butterflies flit here and there among the wildflowers.

All this loveliness is urging me to plunge in to my usual spring planting frenzy. I always plant way more than I need while in the throes of spring fever. All the work and weeding of summer never seems to cross my mind as I decide I can certainly use ten more tomato plants and three kinds of pumpkins. All those seedlings are so small and pretty, somehow I can’t seem to remember just how large they get later. Of course this inexorably ends with crowded garden beds and less yield from all the plants unless I ruthlessly thin them so those that are left can get all the attention they need.

Databases are kind of like gardens that way. It is easy for them to get overcrowded with old or outdated Donor records. This makes it cumbersome and takes your attention away from your active donors. Therefore our Spring Cleaning task for this week is to find and delete all those old, unproductive records. 

While many of you may still be caught in the icy grip of Old Man Winter, Spring has shown her gentle face in the Ozarks. Trees are blossoming in frothy white and stunning maroon. The undergrowth and thickets sport wisps of tender green. Daffodils and crocus echo the warm yellow sunshine while tiny blue wildflowers lay across the ground like little snips of sky.

Spring has always been a time of cleaning and renewal for me. One of my fondest childhood memories is that the first nice weekend in spring we washed all of the winter-stale bedding and hung it outside in the fresh breeze. That first night of snuggling in crisp sheets and inhaling the sweet smell of outdoors was a real treat!

Spring is also a good time to clean out your FundRaiser Database, getting it ready for all the events and fundraisers that will be taking place over the rest of the year. So I am dedicating the month of March as FundRaiser Spring Cleaning Month and will have a project each week to help your database work more smoothly and be easier to use.