a note on the title

In the spring of 2004, I founded a low budget, but high-minded student filmmaking cooperative that eventually petered out in a fizzle of glory. At the time, many of us involved completely believed we were above reproach, and that there was absolutely no accountability for our actions.  This self aggrandizing ideology  spilled out into our fundraising efforts, our negotiations with faculty, and even became the name of our (now defunct) production company. 

At the time, we believed that there was no situation we could not talk our way out of, no rule that couldn’t be broken, no punishment that we could not finagle our way out of.  Naturally, we felt this rule of no accountability applied to our finances as well.

And for a time…it worked.

In those first few years, we talked our way out of parking tickets, got extensions on our assignments while we worked, ran up countless unpaid bar tabs, and spent a lot of time ignoring collection calls. At the height of our success, my partner at No Accountability Productions actually managed to finagle his way out of a signed military contract.  Through it all, we just told ourselves, “Really, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Flash forward 4 years, and I realized that apparently I wasn’t the only one in this economy opperating under the No Accountability creed. Thankfully, I think I was a little ahead of the curve on that realization and have been dutifully repenting for my actions for the past several years. I’m on the way to rebuilding my finances, and thankfully haven’t been hit too hard in this latest downturn.  In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king, and in this economic crisis, I’m one of the lucky ones.

and so it begins.

I’ve debated starting this new blog for several months now.  At first, I was a bit wary of getting back into the whole blogging thing and my unsure of my ability to stick with it, as several of my last few online attempts at writing have failed to hold my interest for any extended length of time.

Then of course I, like many others, got even more distracted by the constant flood of online info on the 2008 election, 538.com, politico, the gloom and doom writings on the financial crisis, the obama campaign’s endless text updates, and the daily rigors of a new job.

But here we are,  at the end of the election season, with a job that focuses on non profit fundraising in a time of economic uncertainty, and I’m finding myself with a bit more time on my hands.

and so it begins.

Looking back, there were likely two major life decisions in the last several years that brought me to this point, that influenced my decision to start writing again and gave me a sense of focus.

The first took place during my sophomore year at Baylor University, a midsized second tier private school in Waco, TX where I was pursuing a degree in marketing. I worked diligently through those first few semesters learning everything I could about marketing theory and advertising history, enjoying it in the abstract, but finding it hard to enjoy the nuts and bolts of actually working on a campaign.

Things came to a head as I found myself working late one night in the library on a group project. We were all involved in a competition to create a full scale marketing plan for the sponsoring company, complete with ad creative, proposed media buys, and long term event sponsorship.  The winning group would eventually split $5,000 in scholarship money, and get the honor of their work possibly being used by the company in future marking efforts.

Naturally there was a sense of fierce competition amongst us all, with groups from several different classes going to great lengths to find the most effective campaign for the client that our introductory coursework had prepared us for.  There were rudimentary print ad mock ups, cheesey TV ad spec scripts, and grandiose talk of nationwide event sponsorship that would revolutionize the industry.

The product?  Spenco Polysorb Insoles.

That’s the moment I realized I was probably in the wrong industry.  I was 20 years old, full of that uniquely collegiate mix of idealism and anti-corporate cynicism, and I saw a life flash before me spent either unglamorously pitching insoles, or increasing the profits of some multinational corporation selling hyper-sweetened cereal to overweight pre-teens. 

I became that guy, growing my hair out and railing against Corporate America, reading Adbusters while extoling the virtues of hemp sandals. 

Thankfully, after a year or two of bumming around with the Deadhead set, skipping class and blowing my scholarship money, a favorite professor of mine convinced me to enroll in his Marketing for Non Profit Organizations program.  It was there that I realized that maybe, just maybe, these skills could be used for good instead of evil, that organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club of America and the Waco Performing Arts Alliance were in just as much need of a  decent marketing plan and fundraising model as anyone at Spenco.

So, I embarked on a change of career that greatly hindered my earnings potential and convinced my family that I was crazy. I devoted myself to philanthropic marketing and working for a wonderful non-profit film festival, all while driving myself further and further into debt. 

Eventually, all that credit card and student loan debt caught up with me, forcing me to leave the fest for other more lucrative options. Of course, that quest for more lucrative options came right as the rest of the country began sinking into the early stages of the sub prime mess. Over the next 6 months I became quite familiar with the tragically ironic refrain “I’m sorry, but we just don’t have the funds to hire a fundraising officer at this time…”

It took a lot of patience, and a good deal of temp and freelance work in the interim, but I finally ended up at Junior Achievement, an organization which provides financial literacy education and the values of entrepreneurship to students worldwide.

The irony is not lost on me that my current career funding financial literacy education to thousands of area school children is a direct result of my financial stupidity and the crushing debt of my early twenties.  I definitely could have used this stuff back then…

All that said, I’ve started this thing, this blog, with a bit more focus than previous efforts. With all that’s going on in the worlds of finance, politics, and the world of non profit fundraising, I should have more than enough to talk about. And, worst case scenario, I can always fill this space with lolcats…