Where is the quiet money?

This afternoon my colleague and I met with a gentleman who used the term “quiet money” to describe an individual who commonly avoids the radar of our community’s fundraising campaigns. Curious to know whether anyone else had coined the phrase I discovered that Larry Van Dyne had in his 2001 Washingtonian article entitled Chasing Money. Dyne, apparently by doing a little prospect research of his own, investigated what he described as the modern art of high-dollar fundraising.

Van Dyne writes:

The trick is to find quiet money–people who don’t make a splash in the press and live well without anyone knowing how they do it…. Fundraisers acquire a sense of smell for money. An impressive house in an upscale zip code or a vacation home in a swank locale may be worth following up, as are ownership of a successful company and expensive pastimes–large-craft sailing, racehorse breeding, art collecting…. Washington has wealthy people who are well known to development offices but mostly unknown to the public.

When someone is able to accumulate significant wealth while avoiding the attention and interest of others you have to assume a few rare qualities. As a necessity of avoiding the radar, these individuals might live in a modest home and drive a relatively inexpensive car. Unfortunately, living in a mansion on the hill and owning a fleet of European cars does catch people’s attention from time to time. In addition to having less than envious possessions, such a person’s name does not typically appear on the side of buildings nor would their name be among those in an organization’s annual report.

If you are interested in receiving assistance with your organizations fundraising efforts, please contact me.

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