Give Till It Bleeds

The Mole has a job, yes, it's true, he doesnt just sit around all day dreaming up what will be the next Motherbox exclusive, he actually works all day in the Magical, Non-Stop Fun world of Fund Raising! No, the Mole does not supply pepperoni sticks and magazine subscriptions to middle schoolers -- he works in the world of axing folks for the beeg dollah, mon -- five, six, seven figure gifts for major non-profits.

There's a lot of us out there, you know. My guess is you know one of us because most fund raisers dont start out to be fundraisers. Very, very few decide in college they are going to raise money for non-profits - -not terribly sexy or lucrative. (As an advisor once told me, "When you start working for non-profits, you find out they mean 'non-profit.'") They start out to be bankers or lawyers or sales people or trashy novelists and one day find themselves needing to put food on the table and so they get a gig ("for now") raising money for their alma mater or something and twenty years later you're an AFP member and you find yourself using terms like "donor base" and "if you could see your way clear" and "leadership gift" without thinking about it.

It grabs hold of you and doesnt let go -- not like a drug, more like a creeping fungus.

Anyway, it creates some strange bedfellows sometimes. Case in point: today I am sitting in my office, trying to clear some of the many trade publications that have piled up on my desk, and on the back page of one of them is an article, actually a very good article, about how to better run your solicitation mailings, by a guy named Herschell Gordon Lewis. Herschell Gordon Lewis? I think. Where do I know that name? That sounds like...hmm....the Mole's brain chews on the words and then suddenly spits out....

Naw. Couldnt be. Maybe it's his son.

But no, a quick check of Mr. Lewis's website confirms it. Not only is Mr. L a nationally renowned expert in successful techniques for direct mail fundraising, he is something even more important: He invented splatter movies.

In 1963, Mr. L was the creator and director of Blood Feast, a movie about, well, a serial killer violently -- really violently -- hacking people up and killing them and tearing them apart, ostensibly to bring an Egyptian god back from the grave. While I have not seen Blood Feast, I have had the pleasure of seeing its follow up, 2,000 Maniacs, the plot of which is two nice, fresh-faced teenagers driving into an odd southern town and then being chased, eaten, and killed by the lunatic residents (all 2,000 of them, get it?) Poorly filmed, atrociously acted, and often careening between avert-your-eyes revolting and roll-your-eyes unintentionally hilarious, they still hold a place in film history as being the first truly all out gory horror films, percursors to Halloween, Friday the 13th, et al. John Waters is a big fan, if that tells you anything. Lewis later went on to make exploitation flicks in the '70's like She-Devils on Wheels.

I guess my point is, you just never know: next time somebody comes by or calls asking for money, and you turn them down or hang up on them, consider Herschel and his predilection for movies about people getting their limbs hacked off and their hearts torn out. You might just rethink your response.

And if you want to learn more about Mr. Lewis, go here: www.herschellgordonlewis.com