Preamble: I want to talk about the line between motivation
and manipulation today. I’m going to talk about a specific charity event in
this post, and I want to start by saying that I like this charity. They are, by
all accounts, a group of people doing good work in the world and doing that
work efficiently (meaning: most of the money donated goes directly to the
people being served). I include this preamble because I don’t want you to read
this post as if I’m being cynical here or in any way dislike this charity.
A night of sparkly dresses and nice suits:
I went to Atlas Free’s Freedom Gala last night. It’s the
nicest time I’ve had while listening to speakers and stories that make me want
to punch people. That sentence needs some context. The desired (but not executed) punch thoughts
were not for the speakers.
Atlas Free is a charity that is, in their words, “on a
mission to put sexual exploitation out of business.” They do that by serving as
a middleman to connect funding and labor with local organizations. They don’t
put it that way. They say, “…we are building a global movement uniting funders,
adventurers, and everyday people with the best local organizations in the world.”
That’s the same thing as a middleman. I imagine they don’t say it my way
because my way sounds less noble and exciting. There’s a reason I’m not in
marketing. Middlemen get a bad rap. They’re important. They exist for a reason.
But they don’t make good ad copy.
As you’ve probably already guessed, the Freedom Gala is a
fundraising event for Atlas Free. The event includes a cocktail hour followed
by dinner with speakers, a live auction, and something I’ll call a give-a-thon.
They have a better name for it, but I can’t be bothered to look it up.* Friends,
this gala was classy. The women were dressed in elegant dresses. The men were
dressed in nice suits.** The event was hosted by Atlas Free employees who were,
without exception, incredibly nice and welcoming. They had waiters dressed in
black handing out wine. The place settings had the full fancy cutlery setup.
You know, where there’s multiple forks and spoons and knives so you don’t have
to use your salad fork on your steak like a savage.
The gala dinner opened with a short speech by the operating
director followed by another speech by Doris Monasterios. Doris is an
indigenous woman from Bolivia who is the national director for Project Suma, an
organization that fights sexual exploitation in Bolivia. She shared how the
words, “I believe in you” from someone who cared combined with tangible
assistance transformed her life. There were a few more people and a few videos
showing the horrors of sex trafficking and how Atlas Free works to free people
from it.
During one of the pauses between speeches, I was talking to John*** about the gala and how much money something like this makes, and he said they made over a million dollars at last year’s gala. This caused me to do some math. My ticket was a gift, but I knew how much it cost. There were fifty tables of ten chairs in the room. Multiplying the cost of each chair by the number of chairs gave me a number that, in normal context, I would consider big. But it was way less than one million dollars. I told him my mental math. He smiled and told me to wait and see. And then the live auction started.
The line between manipulation and motivation
Ladies and gentlemen, that auction was a wild ride. It began
with cake. When they showed a cake on the screen, I naively thought to myself, “Cool.
We’re starting small. Maybe I’ll bid on a cake. That’d be fun.” The opening bid
was for $1,000. I did not bid on the cake. My friends, there were several
cakes. I believe that every cake was sold for a five-figure amount. One cake
sold for about $40k.
I turned to John and told him I am in the wrong tax bracket
to be in this auction. He said it isn’t about that. Most people in the room can’t
afford $40k for a cake. I nodded politely, but I didn’t understand. As the
auction continued, I started thinking about the difference between motivation
and manipulation. I’m all for motivating people to do a thing they should be
doing, but there is something off-putting about manipulation.
Manipulation is using art and cunning (or insidious means)
to make someone do something you want them to do. I’d just watched a short
documentary about the manipulation techniques used by a televangelist who preyed
on the poor by offering the promise of wealth and health and happiness if they’d
just give a little more. There is something gross about someone who drives a Bentley
asking poor people for money so that the poor people can be made rich through
the power of God. That televangelist was using God’s name, but he was using it
for his own personal gain and not to further God’s Kingdom or to help God’s
people. The televangelist was a manipulation artist, a grifter who took
advantage of people.
As I saw the auctioneer working the crowd, it made me think
of the televangelist. He was animated. He was passionate. He would not settle
for apathy. He worked the crowd like a pro, and auction item after auction item
was sold for eye-watering prices. The auction ended and the give-a-thon began. The
idea behind the give-a-thon is brilliantly simple. There were different
price-points offered for bidding in descending order ($50,000, $10,000, $5,000,
$1,000, $500, and $131). He brought up the price point, and people would raise
their bid card saying they’d donate that amount. He’d call a price. A few
people would bid. And you’d think that would be the end of that price point. It
was not. The brilliance here is that the auctioneer was able to work the crowd
to give more. Did four people bid? We can’t leave it at four. We need to get to
five. Did seven people bid? That’s a weird number. Wouldn’t ten be better? If
twenty people bid, he’d ask people to think about how nice it was when they
turned twenty-one. At twenty-two, he asked people to step up to be Michael
Jordan (who wore number 23 for my non-sports fan readers).
Such was the vibe of the room that a $5,000 donation felt
like a completely reasonable thing to make regardless of whether you’re planned
on it or not. I mean, do you want to be Michael Jordan or not? Filled with good
coffee, wine, food, and dessert, surrounded by motivated people, stirred by
moving speeches, it felt like bid numbers were raising themselves. I had to
remind myself that $5,000 is a major financial expense for people in my tax
bracket and that, no, I should not raise my bid number at that level without
having set aside money to do so.
Back to the question: Was this motivation or manipulation? I
have decided it was, on the surface, similar to the manipulation of the
televangelist but fundamentally different. The televangelist pulled on heart
strings and invoked God and promised a better future, but the money only went
to him and his team. The team at the Freedom Gala also pull on heart strings
and invoke God and promise a better future. But the similarities end there. The
future they promise is not for the giver. It is for the receiver. And the money
they collect doesn’t go to the CEO, it goes to people in danger and in need so
that they can find safety and skills and a future.
Conclusion:
In the end, the Freedom Gala was a great experience that
landed on the right side of the line between motivation and manipulation. It motivated
people to back up their stated ideals with their actions instead of just
manipulating money out of people’s wallets. It ended up raising $1.6 million for
Atlas Free (which is a huge chunk of their yearly income).****
I gave what I could afford to give, and in a very small way
became part of the work that they do. And that’s what John was trying to tell
me. For charities like Atlas Free to work, for them to last, they need people
who can drop $40k on a cake, but they also need lots of people who give what
they can because they care about people.
I give the Freedom Gala and Atlas Free five out of five stars.
Would recommend to a friend.
With love,
-Tom
*Update: I bothered to look it up. They call it the “raise
for freedom” because you raise your bid card… for freedom. That said, I can’t
be bothered to remove my previous statement that I can’t be bothered.
**I wore my wedding and funeral suit. My dad told me a man always
needs at least one suit he can wear to weddings and funerals. Mine came from
Kohl’s because that’s how I roll.
***John is the son of my friend who invited me along. John’s
wife works for Atlas Free, and John was volunteering at the dinner.
****Per their published financial report, their income was about
$7.3 million last year.
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