If you’re “Fundraising Success Magazine,” and you’re interviewing Josh Horwitz, unless the topic is called “How to Suckle at the Teat of a Large Foundational Donor,” you must be really hard up for material. But nonetheless, they talk to Josh at some length.
Quickly in the interview, Horwitz dives right into his strengths, mentioning “the Ed Fund is an incredibly lean organization,” and that, “[w]e were able to cut overhead expenses drastically over the past few years, and we successfully run a wide range of violence prevention programs on a tight budget.” He naturally does not reveal that some of the “violence prevention programs” involve berating second stringers in the gun rights movement, and then going so far overboard that they were suspended by Twitter for violations of terms of use. But either way, I’m sure they saved a lot of money during the period their Twitter account was suspended, so it does fit with the narrative, I suppose.
The folks at CSGV are at least in good spirits right? Well, maybe not so much. “[T]he gun violence prevention issue can be demoralizing,” Horwitz notes, though he is clearly proud of his, “strong social-media presence that is growing every day.” Fortunately for him, the readers of Fundraising Success Magazine will never know that Josh’s cadre of New Media allies are among the best lunatics and whakjobs the left has to offer, most of whom are likely too busy pooping in Zuccotti Park to think much about donating to EFSGV or CSGV.
One advantage of not having much in the way of real donors, is that you can give them personal attention,. “[W]e have had some significant success in inspiring longtime direct-mail donors to increase their giving through this more individualized approach. Personal attention to donors and connecting with prospective donors in person or on the phone has been the key.” So NRA members, when was the last time you got a call from Wayne for sending a few bucks NRA’s way? Any SAF members get a call from Alan Gottlieb lately?
And of course, you can’t talk to Josh Horwitz without at least one of their standard propaganda bits slipping out. “Another fundraising difficulty is the obvious resource disparity between the gun violence prevention movement and the industry-funded gun lobby.” NRA doesn’t have this “personal touch” philosophy when it comes to fundraising, because there’s no way they could do this over millions of members, which accounts for the vast majority of their fundraising. But Josh has to be the David fighting the Goliath. It’s probably a lot easier to sleep at night if you think you’re fighting evil corporations, rather than merely being a sour busybody inserting your nose into the personal business of millions and millions of fellow Americans.
Beautiful, It’s nice to see someone like this told to go to hell in such a way that they feel obligated to thank you for the directions when you are done!
I disagree on the NRA not having the same personal touch. I can think of at least a dozen occasions – from the NRA annual meeting to friends of NRA and/or Ducks unlimited type events where I had an opportunity to interact in a meaningful way with Wayne, Chris Cox or NRA board members (and thats just talking as an NRA member, not as an EVC, DC lobbyist, or pretty pathetic sort of former blogger).
Sure they aren’t calling me up all the time (or ever) but there’s a wealth of opportunities for individual NRA members to engage directly in ways Horowitz could only dream of giving his donors.
I like the new look BTW, though following a link from Insty earlier I completely had no idea this was ya’ll. I figured it out now.