Nonprofit Dating

I've frequently drawn the parallel between romantic courtship and the process of "romancing" a prospective donor. Something draws the two parties together (their eyes meet across a crowded room?). After some time, once you know this person is "the one" for you, the object is to pop the question at the right time. Presumably not the same evening you first encounter them ("hey baby, wanna get married?!") ... the premature ask. But also not after dating and going steady for years and years and years ... the "cultivate, cultivate, cultivate, cultivate, cultivate" phenomen.

Five or six weeks ago, I came across this video which pokes some fun at how some of us choose to speak when first approaching a prospect, the language set that sounds so stilted. Today, I ran across it again, and decided I just had to share it. So, if a nonprofit were a guy and the donor a girl, it might go something like this ... click and enjoy.

By the way, this was done using a free, do-it-yourself movie creation service called xtranormal. "If you can type, you can make movies," they say. You choose the setting, the characters, and then type in dialogue. Voila -- an animated movie that you can then blog, share on Twitter or Facebook or YouTube, or whatever. I immediately registered for a free account, but I didn't start playing around with it. Knowing me, I'd have gotten sucked into the tool for hours. But it seems like a great idea for animating a message inexpensively. It will be interesting to see how it is used by community benefit organizations.