Guilty money?

I've been in financial report writing mode for the last couple days.  It'll be the last big financial update I do before I sink eyeball-deep into year end grossness.  Do you realize that there are only 7 weekends left in 2009?!?!  Ack!

I like my job.  Non-profit is interesting.  There is absolutely no way to predict whether or not you're going to run at a profit or loss for the year (let's face it, it's usually a loss) because your sole source of income is hoping that people give you money out of the goodness of their hearts.  ...not a very good long term business plan, but it's seemed to work so far.

So, in this particular financial bulletin I have made a nifty looking graph to track the pattern of donations over the year.  Naturally, donations spike around holidays.  Specifically, they're at their highest at Easter and Christmas.

Now here's where I go on my fun little bunny trail...

I've come to realize that the Easter donations are always higher than the Christmas donations.

Now to me, Easter (in the very loosest sense of the word) seems to be a time of realizing you're a horrible, horrible sinner and feeling kinda guilty about being the reason God had to die to save your sorry butt from all your sinning.

Christmas, on the other hand, is a time of joy and merriment and gift giving and fun!

Isn't that interesting.  People seem to donate more when they're guilty than when they are joyful.  Huh.

;)