RFM questions
Over the past year-plus running Radio Free Monday, I've gotten some questions about submissions, and here are the collected answers. These are not official guidelines (those are here) - these are more of a FAQ. Kind of FAQish. Distinctly FAQlike.
I don't feel good asking for help! I feel like I'm being lazy. That's capitalism, Calvinism, and the patriarchy all messing with your mind. It's good to do as much as you can when you can easily do so; but none can do everything all by themself - and every one of us, at some point, needs to ask others for help. Asking for help when you need it, and helping others when you can, is how a healthy society functions. In terms of donations, it's better to ask for help as soon as things start to go wrong, if possible. That way, you have a better chance at keeping yourself from having more problems, and needing more help.
To illustrate: you have a toothache, but it's mild so you don't do anything about it for a few months because you have catastrophic insurance, but not maintenance-insurance. Then five months after you first started to feel the pain, the pain has slowly gotten worse so you have trouble eating solid foods, you're having trouble sleeping, and you try to make an appointment with the dentist...but a) you need to pay for the initial appointment and you don't have that money saved up, and b) dentists can't schedule walk-ins any more so you're going to be waiting six months minimum. So five months later, you make the appointment, start trying to put together the money for that; but you're unable to function well, your job notices and starts getting cranky and they're making "we're going to have to let you go if you can't return to your previous levels of productivity" noises, you're suddenly under a lot more stress...and you have to live with this pain and stress for at least the next six months. The ideal thing to do would have been to ask for money for that dental appointment the instant you noticed that the pain was not something as simple as a seed stuck between your teeth. You might have had to fundraise for a second appointment or dental surgery, but things wouldn't have gotten as bad, and you would have given yourself many days of enjoying foods and nights of sounder sleep.
Ask when you need help. Give back when you can. Ask early when possible, so that the help you need is easier for others to help with.
(Sometimes, life just jumps up and smacks you. Sudden illness or injury, loss of income, disasters. Obviously, you can only start asking for help when you know there's a need.)
I don't feel good asking for help for (pet expenses / elective surgery / something that is for more than survival)! See above - that's more of someone else's thoughts in your head, telling you that your needs aren't important. Humans in healthy societies deserve joy, not just existence. Also, there are lots of people who have pets / get elective and/or affirming care / spend money on things beyond simple survival who would think it entirely normal to see someone fundraising for those things. Let the potential donors choose if they want to donate to your needful expenses. (Fundraisers to buy yachts or private jets may be posted, but only so that everyone else can point and laugh.)
Can I post a link to my art site if I'm not currently fundraising for any specific thing? No, you may not. Radio Free Monday has been, and will continue to be, like a community bulletin board rather than a link directory or blog catalog. The reason for this distinction is because people expect link directories' links to always be valid; but people seeing RFM posts assume that newer links are all good, and older links may or may not still be valid, but probably aren't.
I by myself do not have the time nor the inclination to build maintain a link directory. That's a LOT of work to try and maintain it manually - and while there are ways to set up a site so that individuals can add or update their links by themself, that requires creating or finding the right software, and I don't care to take up that task. If I stick to posting things on RFM that are time-based - that is, once they're announced they're probably still valid for a month, but may not be after that point - I can probably handle this load for several more years. If I start trying to become everything to everybody, I'm headed for burnout in a year or two. I'm not going to do that.
But I really want to have a directory of fan artists/fiber artists/costume builders!! Then create one. Seriously - if you want a certain kind of online resource, what's stopping you from creating that kind of thing? Yes there's finding suitable free software, or finding and paying for software, and then maintaining that software. But those are the exact same kind of things anyone would have to do.
If you do create such an online resource, contact me and let me know, and I may link it in a sidebar of RFM. (As soon as I get around to changing the design so that there is a sidebar.)
Will you write my blurb for me? Sort of. I will edit the descriptive text that you submit. I will not go to your link, find what it is that you're fundraising for, and then write the whole blurb for you. Descriptive blurbs for links are generally about 30 words, or approximately 3-4 sentences. This gives everyone submitting a fundraising link gets the same amount of space, and enough space to briefly describe their need or cause.
I've been through a lot of things that caused my current need - why can't I have a longer blurb to explain that to people? You can...on your associated post or GFM or whatnot. Your Radio Free Monday announcement is a short sign, not the entirety of your situation. Think of it as a form of business- or calling-card: it tells people who you are, it tells people what you're doing, it tells people where they can find more information and how they can donate to you.
Can I post for multiple weeks? Yep! If you want a post to appear additional weeks, go to the submission form again, paste in the URL, and put something like "Use last week's submission please." in the blurb. If you skip some weeks and want to re-use the previous blurb, please copy-paste your text from your most recent post. Please do keep the guidelines in mind, though. The limits are there so that no person can monopolize, or appear to monopolize, the resource. (Also, look up donor fatigue. This was a new phrase to me, but it makes sense.)
Can I say that I'm also jobsearching / selling stuff / open for commissions along with fundraising? Yes, you can...on your associated post or GFM or whatnot. Again, Radio Free Monday is for shorter blurbs that catch peoples' attention, not for several longer, very detailed posts that visually dominate a week's posting.
I don't know what to say / how to write my posts to best get donations! Can you tell me what to do? My own personal experience at the persuasive voice is nonexistent. I'm a technical writer from a tech background. I've written SOPs, APIs, SDK documentation, tutorials, end-user software docs, and similar content. I've never worked on marketing copy. The last time I wrote in the persuasive voice was for a college essay. This was in the previous century (srsly - it was the early 1990s). Luckily, Copperbadge, who works in the charity field and who originated RFM, wrote up a good blogpost giving suggestions on what kind of information to put in your fundraising posts.
In my own personal experience, things that have helped me decide to donate to a fundraiser for someone I did not know include:
- was it clear what they were fundraising for?
- was it easy to find how much they were trying to raise, and how much they'd raised already?
- could I easily find the donation buttons or links?
- were there multiple ways for me to donate, so that I could choose which system to use? (I loathe putting my credit card into online sites. I just hate it. I'm worried the site will suffer a breach, there will be a bunch of charges I have to dispute...all because I wanted to donate to someone. It's the nightmare scenario, but sadly it isn't unrealistic.)