What happens when Miley Cyrus blesses your cause
Heather Carmichael, executive director of My Friend’s Place, a nonprofit that supports homeless youth in Hollywood, says thanks to Miley Cyrus’ promotion at MTV’s Video Music Awards Sunday, $70,000 in donations had come in as of Monday morning.
“Today’s been a little bit of a whirlwind – it actually started last night,” she said.
Carmichael notes that My Friend’s Place is privately funded. “So coming into this opportunity is really out of the ordinary… ever so extraordinary,” she says. “It’s a rare day that we will be able to raise that amount of money in that short period of time.”
The money, says Carmichael, could go to anything from providing more food to longer hours to adding more staff. But Jeff Shuck, CEO of Plenty, a consulting firm that helps nonprofits raise money through peer-to-peer fundraising, says a nonprofit should take a moment to stop and think about the money.
“It’s an aberration, it’s a windfall, it’s not something that can be easily replicated,” he says.
One trap, says Shuck, is for nonprofits is to make long-term decisions like hiring new staff based on a one-time shot of income that isn’t sustainable. Instead, he says, organizations should think about saving and improving infrastructure.
“Annoying purchases that you would not otherwise want to spend money on,” he says. “We can’t change the world unless we can turn the lights on. We can’t make a difference to other people in our lives unless we have desks and paper and computers.”
As for the strategy of using a celebrity to raise money, says Trevor Neilson, president of G2 Investment Group and co-founder ofGlobal Philanthropy Group, a consultancy for nonprofits – and a friend who advised Cyrus on how to promote My Friend’s Place – “really, it comes down to a combination of both raising awareness, but also raising funds.”
“Any celebrity-oriented philanthropic campaign that doesn’t actually raise money to create real change in the world, isn’t really a success,” he says. “It’s fine to raise awareness but if you don’t raise awareness and don’t create real world change, you’re not really helping these kids.”
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