I think I experienced tonight's fundraising as the toughest yet. I was tired, nervous and unconfident. I struggled with my habit of talking at the person, rather than listening, acknowledging, taking them in and giving them space. I got a lot of `no's' and felt like I was there to chase the target, trying to save face and my pride rather than out of any sincere desire to help India or make genuine connections with the people I met.
"Too busy / haven't got time / not interested / not a good time / already doing loads / trying to put the children to bed / cooking / eating / just got in / just going out / a guy from another charity was around last week / already donating to Karuna regularly / good for you, but no / wish you lots of luck, but no / etc" came the replies. Pretty much all said in a friendly and pleasant way mind you. Very much the kind of neighbourhood where you'd expect there to already be a lot of Karuna supporters. Also very much the kind of neighbourhood you'd expect other fundraisers to have made a bee-line for and to have cleaned up in just before you got there.
I did actually bump into a guy from another charity on the street the other night. He was friendly enough and said he knew Jayaraja. We compared notes on which streets we'd already knocked, and which ones we were planning to do. I was working eastwards and he was working westwards. On overlapping, we both found the going less easy as we each knocked on doors the other had tried earlier that day or week.
Amidst all the `no's' there were a couple of glimmers of possibility including one guy who said he already does a number of standing orders for other charities. "Here we go again," I thought to myself, inwardly giving up hope, but then to my surprise he said perhaps it was time for a change and that maybe he'd consider `swopping over to us'.
