Everything went well until I had to carve it, which is something I struggle with. It’s too much pressure! Once the turkey’s out of the oven, carving it up is the only thing standing between your guests and their Thanksgiving dinner.
I suspect carving a turkey feels a lot like fundraising for some people. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, people expect you to just figure it out because you’re the one holding the sharp knife. (A metaphorical fundraising knife, that is).
Let’s dig in and eat our feelings.
I’m not good at carving a Thanksgiving turkey because I don’t know how to do it and I grew up with a father who really didn’t know how to do it. Some families have a paterfamilias who wears a suit to Thanksgiving dinner and carves the turkey in front of an audience of smiling, cooperative family members. Like these drinks of Thanksgiving water:
The only person not smiling in this picture is the woman who did all the cooking.
This is not the Thanksgiving I grew up with. My father carved turkey with the kill-or-be-killed instinct of somebody with three antagonistic teenagers. Some of my most horrifying vivid memories are of him alone in the kitchen, stripped down to his undershirt, muttering profanities (the bad ones, you guys!), hunched over the bird while he pulled meat from bone.
Thanksgiving Rule #1: Stay clear of the kitchen until dad’s psychosis plays out.
Thanksgiving Rule #2: If your mom naively tries to send you into the kitchen for the cranberry relish, make your little brother do it.
My therapist: “What happened in your childhood, Dan, that makes you sob uncontrollably every time you smell roasted turkey?”
Just like carving a turkey, a lot of fundraising happens on the fly. And people are just expected to know how to do it:
The PTA is doing a phone-a-thon and your kid signed you up? Here…work down this list and try to get people to cough up enough money for a new playground.
Your boss is collecting money and donations for Toys for Tots? Go get your colleagues to contribute something so the box doesn’t sit empty until New Years.
Oh, you want to run a marathon? First go shake down your friends and family for $5k for a race-approved charity before you can secure your bib.
There’s no school for carving turkey and a lot of times, there’s no school for the fundraising others expect you to do. When this is the case, the best course of action is to just jump in, see what you can make happen, and remember that however you carve that turkey or raise that money, people will be talking about how good it tasted or how much good you did. That’s what they remember. Not the work behind it.
This is me fundraising the crap out of my turkey. Uneven cuts, a little turkey on the counter, and a dog at my feet knowing something is about to drop. My kids are cowering in the bathroom creating their own Thanksgiving nightmares.
S I D E B A R
I learned how to fundraise from a woman named Holly (who almost got her arm stuck in a mailbox) and a guy named Jeff (who once lent me his TV so my Thanksgiving company could watch a football game). But I actually learned how to carve a turkey by watching YouTube videos and gorging myself on the mean things people say in the Comments. Here’s a taster:
If carving is like fundraising, then is the turkey your donor? No, it’ not. Let’s not go nuts here, you guys. It’s a serviceable analogy. Not a perfect one.
During the Thanksgivings of my youth, my father would eventually offer one last mean parting shot at the turkey, wash his hands, mop his brow, put his shirt back on, and deliver the platter to the table. That crazy glint in his eyes would fade and then dinner would be served. How he carved the turkey didn’t matter. It was time to eat.
Carving is messy, and so is fundraising. Which I’ve talked about before. I actually think fundraising is better when we allow ourselves to be a little messy, even if it’s not strictly by the book:
Speaking of books, I’m writing one called The Artful Fundraiser’s Guide to Train Robbery. I’m likely going to talk about it more in 2025; it’s about famous people throughout history who didn’t know how to raise money, did a lot of stuff wrong, made a big steaming mess of it, but wound up raising the money that changed the world.
It’s not a book about how people should raise money.
It’s about how they actually do it.
Which is what we do here every week, so it all sort of fits together.
Now go finish your leftovers and we’ll make another mess of it next week.
Child #1 should record every week!
Someone get Child #1 an adjoining Fundraising for Breakfast podcast. Call NPR.