I come from a household with little money to spare.
Money makes me clam up, and when someone asks me for it, I freeze. Large purchases bring a wave of nausea and guilt and I cling to what I have with a desperation I’m embarrassed to show outwardly. Every purchase comes with a price on my mental health. I have money wounds.
I often say “I can’t donate but I can give you my energy. I can volunteer my time.”
So, I had to question myself when I joined the team for the fundraising committee.
“How can I ask others to give money when I can’t?”
But then that gave me a new question, “Can I?”
I thought it over, sick to my stomach with the fear that I had gotten myself in over my head.
How could I be genuine and true to myself while asking others for money? When I have so much fear and uncertainty surrounding money?
And within the first conversation with Beth about the fundraising campaign, my fear came true. She asked me to donate. My stomach clenched and my fingers started to tingle as my brain defaulted to my normal trauma response: survive this situation. I stuttered out responses to try to placate what I feared would turn hostile, and prayed that we would move on to what I could do PHYSICALLY to help; how I could give myself instead of my money.
But it was different than the other times I have been approached by strangers, being told how my money should be spent and how I was failing if I didn’t donate to the cause. She removed the guilt, and she connected with me as a human being connecting to another human being. She talked about her own finances and what she was hoping to donate. She asked that I consider donating, but that I truly consider what I could give. She didn’t tell me a price, and she didn’t expect me to match her own donation.
Okay. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I just give a little.
But then my insecurities came out. What if it isn’t enough? Will I be failing her, and the event, and *everyone* if I don’t donate enough? Will I look cheap? Will I look rude?
$5 is a large donation to me. That is a coffee that I know I shouldn’t buy but I do anyways on a bad day when I need that mental health boost. It’s money that I have been told will help me buy a house, or money I will one day retire on if I use it properly. But it also looks small to people who have more. I was trying to convince myself out of donating under the premise that “if I don’t give enough to make a difference, then I can’t give anything at all.”
Beth and I discussed the difficulty of not only raising money, but the difficulties of being open to receiving money. The guilt, fear and stress of asking for money, even if it is for a cause you truly believe in. “I believe in this cause more than I am scared to ask” was a valuable piece of wisdom she gave me. To encourage others to spend what THEY can, even if the amount they can spend is far different than any amount I could.
I was worried that fundraising was driven by greed, and even when I agreed to help I worried that this was not the ‘right spot’ for my skills. I hadn’t thought it in exactly those words, but upon reflection I know it’s how I felt. I feared that all of fundraising was driven by scammers. People who just wanted to take from me and from others.
Beth has taught me so much in the short time we have been working together. Fundraising CAN be that way. It CAN be manipulative and people can corner you and sweet talk you out of more than you can afford. It’s unfortunate and I’m sure we have all experienced something like this. BUT that is not the heart of fundraising, and it is certainly not her method.
She approaches fundraising -asking for, giving to, and receiving money- in a way I had never known existed. She taught me about community. One of the first things she told me about this campaign was that she hopes nobody pays it all outright. I was shocked. How could she hope for LESS money? Isn’t the whole point to ask for as much as we can get?
Nope. Her reasoning was that waiting for a few large donations to sweep your fundraiser along merely creates division amongst the community it serves. It creates a feeling that we are not capable without the richer few to carry the load. That we must wait, like a princess in a fairytale, for our prince to arrive and save the day.
“Fundraising is about community. Not about the wealthy,” she told me. “If we wait for that one wealthy person, then we give up our own power and disparage the power of others.” The real power of fundraising is not in one or two large sums by a wealthy stranger, but in each individual of the community we intend to support.
By looking at the quantity of donations (how many people have come together) as opposed to the quantity of each donation (the amount each person has spent), we can build a stronger community. We are all here because we BELIEVE in the Mago Community. We feel CONNECTED to the work, to the message, to the importance of it. We want a world with this Community in it. That alone holds so much power!
And while we all want to see the Mago Community grow and thrive, the unfortunate truth is that events and services cost money to run. We have relied on volunteer work for so long, but we can’t volunteer away the cost of organizing. That cost has to come from somewhere, or someone. Instead of continuing to allow that cost to fall on our founder we open up this opportunity for our community to come together.
Before I wrap up this post, I want to approach some other feelings I have awoken within myself with the idea of “I can’t give money, but I can give away myself.” This is something I have always defaulted to, the idea that I have to work extra hard since I don’t have that valuable currency to give. And it almost always leads me to exhaustion and teetering on the edge of burnout. When that happens, I feel like I have failed. I couldn’t give enough money to count for something, and now I also can’t give my energy. In those moments the feeling of defeat is overwhelming.
I’ve decided to challenge myself, that maybe I have more to give than I thought. Maybe, instead of giving away the parts of myself that cost so much energy, I can CHOOSE to donate money –only the amounts that I have, the amounts that I feel good about– and I can let that be enough. To know that the fundraiser will grow with all of our hands, and that any amount I give can be enough.
To feel like I’m not ‘doing enough’ is a narrative I have struggled with throughout both my childhood and my adult life and, in a weird way, donating (with this new idea that ANY amount is valuable) has allowed me to feel that it is finally *enough*. I can volunteer my time without working myself to exhaustion in some self-driven need to be ‘valuable enough’ to excuse the lack of monetary support.
I can’t afford to donate hundreds of dollars, and thus I don’t expect anyone else to do so unless that brings them joy. But I can afford $1. By looking into my account and considering my finances, I found I could afford a little more and I was comfortable to give it.
So I ask you to consider your own relationship to money and, as nervous as I am, could you give too?
Please visit our campaign page to make your donations:
Rebecca Whenham Rebecca Whenham is an amateur writer, deep thinker, artist, and yoga teacher! She is deeply introspective, always looking for ways to expand her knowledge and to live authentically and genuinely. Rebecca assisted in the fundraising campaign for Mago Academy’s 2024 S/HE Divine Studies Online Conference, working with an expert mentor and learning the art of fundraising. She finds fulfillment in learning new skills and finding ways to incorporate and expand those skills to enrich her community and the lives of others.