My friend Bruce Neimeyer sent me a link to this article on Chronicle.com today; I'm sure it made the little back of neck hairs rise for every development commicator that read it. Apparently, Framingham State tried to use humor in a recent solicitation. As we all know, if you are going to use humor, you better nail it! I guess they didn't because a bunch of alums freaked out. I know I always sound like such a research geek, but hello--did anyone think to test this risky approach before it was sent to 6,000 alums? A quick series of online focus groups surely would have helped the institution figure out this was not a good idea. And, perhaps that other ideas they had for uses of humor might have been a home run. Research will never die!
Fundraising Communication Nightmare
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This page contains a single entry by Meredith published on October 21, 2008 6:15 PM .
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This is one of those moments where I have to share some of the sage advice Christopher Simpson gave me. He always reminded me that perhaps others don't think I'm nearly as funny/witty/cute as I believe I am. Here is the exact advice he gave me more than once (those of you who knew him will appreciate this)... "Dammit Teresa. It takes six minutes to love you and you only had five!" Sounds like Framingham needed that Christopher-ism, and that extra minute.
-- Teresa