That’s an easy answer, because you asked me to. You did, really.
My name is Christopher Davenport. I am an independent documentary filmmaker. During my filmmaking career, I learned that a well-told story can have a HUGE impact on individuals and communities. In 2001, I directed a documentary on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. After the film was released, I started getting emails and phone calls, from complete strangers, telling me that they were booking plane tickets and hotel rooms to go back to experience The Wall. They were calling to thank me. WOW!
Soon after, I was asked to do my first fundraising video for a local hospital foundation. The story was so powerful, they raised more than twice their goal! That’s when I found the kind of stories I love to tell ~nonprofit impact stories.
So, I took all of my really expensive filmmaking equipment and my decades of training and focused my energies on telling stories for nonprofit organizations. As part of my marketing, I created a series of video clips of fundraising professionals sharing their successes in a fun and informative way. When the series ended, I received a flood of emails asking me to continue creating these clips. These free, weekly video clips have become known as “Movie Mondays for Fundraising Professionals.” They’ve been airing every Monday since April of 2008.
More emails arrived in my in box asking for all of the “Movie Mondays” clips on “helping your board succeed” or “special events” or “donor retention”. These specific clips were bundled and turned into DVD’s. They are shown in board meetings and staff meetings around the world. You can get them here on this site. That’s how this site was born. (NonprofitBestPractices.com).
Along the way, I’ve met some incredibly knowledgeable and experienced fundraising professionals, trainers, consultants and authors. You may have heard of a few of them, Marc Pitman, Pamela Grow, Tom Ahern, Simone Joyaux, Susan Howlett, Shanon Doolittle, Gail Perry and others. Because Movie Mondays for Fundraising Professionals is growing and I keep getting asked to create easy, accessible, affordable, step-by-step training, I’ve partnered with these fun and intelligent folks to do just that. I’m thrilled to have produced comprehensive training products with them.
So, as long as you keep asking, I’ll keep creating.
That’s why.
