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nonprofit marketing

Why I regret #GivingTuesday 900 506 Michael Hemphill

Why I regret #GivingTuesday

Now that Giving Tuesday is over, let me share why I regret Giving Tuesday.

Yesterday I received at least 43 emails from 27 different nonprofit organizations asking for my support on #GivingTuesday. This doesn’t count all the texts, social media posts and so forth. 

Mind you, I don’t fault the nonprofits. They’re taking advantage of this one day — fabricated with good intentions, I’m sure, in 2012 — to inspire us to think beyond ourselves during the holiday hustle and donate to these organizations that bind us together when so many other institutions have failed.

But the unintended consequence of Giving Tuesday is a further relegation of nonprofits to subservient status. By hyping this one day for charitable giving, we suggest that the countless causes with which nonprofits grapple aren’t important the other 364 days.

In our for-profit world, nonprofits are already consigned to the lesser ranks inhabited by Oliver Twist nearly 200 years ago: “Please, sir, I want some … more?”

This scarcity mindset calls to mind the tiresome adage I’ve too often heard in nonprofit board meetings: “Nonprofits should operate more like a business.” 

Are there some best business practices that all organizations should incorporate? Sure. But let’s do without the condescension when we talk about nonprofits as if they’re puppies scrambling for scraps at the dinner table.

The motivation of business is to make money … and there’s no money to be made in housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, spaying stray cats and dogs, teaching literacy to immigrants and native-born Americans, showing children how to dance and sing, preserving African-American history, awarding scholarships for kids to afford college, creating art in low-income neighborhoods or helping the frightened single mom care for her baby — just some of the nonprofit missions we’ve highlighted and helped on our TV show BUZZ. 

As I share in the opening of every episode: “their profit comes not in the thing they sell, but the good they do.”

This goodness deserves celebration year round, not just 1/365th of the year. 

If we as a society say that these missions are important, then let’s resolve in 2025 to celebrate Giving Tuesday each week, not just the first one of December. 

That nonprofit we professed such care about yesterday will be working just as tirelessly, just as heartfully, those Tuesdays as well.

Always buzzing,
Michael Hemphill
BUZZ creator

Watch our latest round of BUZZ in Birmingham 900 506 Michael Hemphill

Watch our latest round of BUZZ in Birmingham

We just finished premiering our latest round of six BUZZ in Birmingham episodes on Alabama Public Television. Watch now on demand to see how we highlighted and helped the nonprofits Nurse-Family Partnership, United Ability, Small Magic, College Choice Foundation, and the Alabama Association of Nonprofits!

We thank The Daniel Foundation of Alabama and Joseph S. Bruno Charitable Foundation for providing the grants that underwrote our production costs.

Election Day BUZZ 900 495 Michael Hemphill

Election Day BUZZ

On the eve of Election Day, please allow me to share my welcome remarks from our recent BUZZ in Birmingham preview party:

“Good evening everyone. My name is Michael Hemphill and it’s my privilege to be the creator of this TV show called BUZZ, which I launched in 2020 to highlight and help nonprofit organizations.

For the last 20+ years I’ve worked in the nonprofit world in and around my home in Virginia, where I’ve developed a deep passion for these charitable organizations because they literally do everything!

Consider: Over our first five years of BUZZ and 50+ episodes, we’ve featured a ballet company, a zoo, a community choir, food pantry, homeless shelters, foster care agency, unplanned pregnancy center, a business accelerator, a honeybee sanctuary and other environmental groups, an historic African-American school, literacy volunteers, service dogs, and on and on.

Here in my hometown of Birmingham, we’ve featured Children of Slain Police Officers, Studio by the Tracks, the Hispanic and Immigrant Center of Alabama, Bundles of Hope Diaper Bank … and the stars of tonight’s shows: UAB’s Nurse-Family Partnership, United Ability, Small Magic and College Choice Foundation.

The uniqueness of these organizations can only be matched by their hearts. So thank you so much for coming tonight and supporting these great nonprofits and our work.

Now, before we start the show, please allow me this Public Service Announcement:

Here in this room tonight are my dearest friends and family, along with many in the Birmingham community, who represent the full spectrum of political and religious thought.

We have here diehard Democrats and diehard Republicans … Christians and agnostics … liberals, conservatives, libertarians. If my wife’s brother was here, we would even have a real life communist. We have Trumpers, never Trumpers. People, we even have Alabama and Auburn fans … and folks there’s even here with us tonight a guy who roots for Vanderbilt.

All this to say that in the weeks ahead you may be tempted to despair … and to my daughters, nieces and nephews, I am sorry this is the political climate you’re growing up in. It didn’t use to be this way and I hope we can one day soon return to compromise, civility and decency.

In the meantime, when you are tempted to despair, I encourage you to keep in your minds and hearts what we are here tonight to celebrate: the beauty of IRS Code 501c3 and the sector that this provision inspires, which is unlike any in the world: our nonprofit organizations, which work every day, tirelessly, in every field imaginable, to make our communities and country better.

Amen? All right … on with the show!“

BUZZ in Birmingham is back! 900 506 Michael Hemphill

BUZZ in Birmingham is back!

Join our free Watch Party on October 10, 5:30 pm Central, at Red Mountain Theatre Arts Campus when we preview our newest episodes of BUZZ television show highlighting and helping nonprofits in Birmingham, Alabama!

The Watch Party will include hors d’oeuvres, cash bar … and an opportunity for the greater Birmingham community to meet and greet the stars in our shows and learn more about their missions: Nurse-Family Partnership, United Ability, Small Magic, College Choice Foundation, and the Alabama Association of Nonprofits’ Micro-Film Initiative.

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BUZZ in Birmingham Preview Party 900 506 Michael Hemphill

BUZZ in Birmingham Preview Party

Join our free Watch Party on October 10, 5:30 pm Central, at Red Mountain Theatre Arts Campus when we preview our newest episodes of BUZZ television show highlighting and helping nonprofits in Birmingham, Alabama!

Sponsored by Maynard Nexsen law firm, the Watch Party will include hors d’oeuvres, cash bar … and an opportunity for the greater Birmingham community to meet and greet the stars in our shows and learn more about their missions: Nurse-Family Partnership, United Ability, Small Magic, College Choice Foundation, and the Alabama Association of Nonprofits’ Micro-Film Initiative.

BUZZ in Birmingham Watch Party 2024

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These BUZZ episodes begin airing October 11 on Alabama Public Television and our YouTube channel. Questions: contact BUZZ creator Michael Hemphill by email here.

Funding for our production comes from the Daniel Foundation of Alabama and Joseph S. Bruno Charitable Foundation, with additional support from the Mike & Gillian Goodrich Foundation.

About BUZZ in Birmingham:

Launched in 2020, BUZZ airs on public television in Virginia – and on YouTube – and features the great work that nonprofits do in our communities, and the marketing pros who donate their time and talent to help these life-giving organizations attract more donors, volunteers and clients to their cause. A native of Birmingham, BUZZ creator Michael Hemphill brought his show to his hometown in 2023. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube.

Alabama Public Television broadcast schedule:

Oct. 11, 8:30 pm – A program of the UAB School of Nursing, Nurse-Family Partnership provides at-home nursing care for mostly first-time, low-income mothers during pregnancy through her child’s first 2 years of life. BUZZ rewinds in time to feature the video marketing “buzz” provided by Red Clay Media’s “It’s A Southern Thing.”

Oct. 18, 8:30 pm – Each year United Ability provides innovative services connecting more than 5,500 people with disabilities to their communities and empowering individuals to live full and meaningful lives. New to BUZZ, Champ Creative provides some “buzz” for one of United Ability’s revenue-generating programs to help fund its mission.

Oct. 25 – 8:30 pm – Small Magic helps our youngest children maximize their school readiness and future economic mobility through language development. Helping Small Magic reach more Hispanic families is a past star of BUZZ: Hispanic and Immigrant Center of Alabama.

Nov. 1, 8:30 pm – College Choice Foundation offers resources and opportunities for motivated, high-achieving students from disadvantaged, under-resourced backgrounds to gain entrance into and attend college. They’re getting some video marketing buzz from a pilot project coordinated by the Alabama Association of Nonprofits!

Nov. 8 and 15, 8:30 pm – In 2024, Alabama Association of Nonprofits embarked on an exciting initiative — funded by the Fidelity Charitable Catalyst Fund — to help 10 Alabama nonprofits create, and leverage, new video marketing buzz. Over the course of this 2-part BUZZ, we feature the videographers who worked with the nonprofits to share their inspiring missions … and of course their videos!