Reflections on the Claw Game

And how fundraisers often get caught chasing oversized stuffed bananas.

If you’ve ever been to an arcade, you’ve seen the claw game. Early versions of the claw game asked the user to maneuver a tiny mechanical steam shovel over a sea of corn kernels and drop the shovel into the corn with the hope of filching out hidden silver dollars. The scheme was so popular - and lucrative - that by the 1950s the US Government considered them no different than slot machines, and destroyed them during FBI raids.

Yet to this day the claw game remains a fixture at any modern arcade, bowling alley, Walmart, or corner pizza joint with prizes ranging from stuffed animals and costume jewelry, to entire PlayStation Gaming consoles.

Earlier this year, in a fit of self-flagellation, I took my 5th-grade daughter and her buddy to the local mall. After about 20 minutes of riding around on giant stuffed animals (yes this is also a thing), we went to the mall arcade/bowling alley combo where - bisecting the latest race driving and 1st person shooter games - the arcade had erected a 500 square foot claw game gauntlet with a prize menagerie ranging from walrus sized beanbag chairs to 6-packs of Spicy Top Ramen.

Brief aside: My daughter’s buddy spent - conservatively - $15 claw-gaming his way to a brick of spicy top ramen, which I think set the world record for most expensive box of instant ramen ever purchaed.

“Rent Me! Rent Me!”

Playing the claw game can be intoxicating - hell, I was riveted by my tiny friend’s instant noodle-obsessed spelunking expedition - but the whole setup got me thinking about what other parts of our lives look, feel, and even generate utility in the same way as the claw game. Then I heard about a New Hampshire man, Henry Gribbohm, who liquidated his entire life savings trying to win an overstuffed banana at a carnival game called “Tubs of Fun”. I don’t know how to play “Tubs of Fun” entails, but it must be addictive because Mr. Gribbohm dropped 2,600 clams into it trying to win a giant piece of fruit.

The one area of fundraising where the claw game approach seems prolific is in the area of major gifts fundraising. Too many major gift fundraisers approach their work in the same way as Mr. Gribbohm: they invest time, institutional resources, and personal energy into relationships that seem within reach but are unnecessarily complex, fickle, or wrought with peril. Many see wealthy prospective donors as uniformly accessible, or worse - uniformly generous.

I’ll give you a fictional example: Major Gift Officer Pat is really excited about an upcoming lunch meeting with Sidney Jones, rated as a $250,000 prospect. Not bad right? Jones is a partner at a local law firm, owns three houses, and has three children in private school. Sidney's partner Morgan Jones-Malone works for a local nonprofit, serves on three prominent local boards, and is active in local government. Seeing this as a huge meeting, Pat brings FAQ brochures about the organization, a Campaign Case Statement, and a commemorative t-shirt from the organization’s recent 50th Anniversary. Over lunch, Pat asks all the right questions, invites the Jones family to an upcoming special event, and at the end offers a conversation with the organization’s CEO.

Sounds like a great meeting, right? Actually, I think the answer is a “likely no”. And after 20 years of high-level major and principal gifts experience, I think I’m right.

That’s because the ingoing objective of Pat’s meeting should not be to achieve equivalency with the other organizations already being supported by the Jones Family and dive right into cultivation. Rather, the goal of Pat’s meeting should only be to understand when, whether, and under what conditions the Jones family might elevate Pat’s organization to the top (or near the top) of their family priorities.

Without that information, I would discount the value of that interaction - and any near-term interactions - to near zero.

Because by deciding to launch right into cultivation, Pat kicked off a competition between Pat’s organization and the Jones family’s already established civic involvements. This is a fight unlikely to yield much - if anything - to Pat’s home turf.

Which brings us back to the claw game.

In the claw game, each shiny object behind the plexiglass appears tantalizingly within reach. Claw gamers think, “If only the claw would hit that giant kitty just so, it would totally be mine”, or “If I can get the claw swinging, then bounce it against the XBox, yeah baby, I’m going home with a $1 Xbox!”. This kind of rationalizing built the entire claw game industry - an industry that’s shockingly valued at nearly $2 Billion.

In major gifts fundraising, it’s critical to establish and maintain extremely selective criteria when choosing who to cultivate towards a major philanthropic investment, and who you don’t. Prospects who have deep established relationships and involvements with other organizations are - in my experience - mostly a lost cause regardless of their personal wealth (except in extremely rare instances - more on that in a later post).

That’s because those other organizations have a head start, and catching them from behind (absent some catalyst) in my experience is darn near impossible.

So don’t fall for the shiny new object behind the plexiglass. Establish deliberate criteria regarding who is (And is not) a true major gifts prospect for your organization right from the jump. Otherwise you’re the fundraising equivalent of our friend Henry Gribbohm, playing a major gift version of “Tubs of Fun” in pursuit of elusive giant bananas.

Don’t chase after stuffed bananas. Yeah, this is a thing.