A few months back

A few months back I donated £25 to Resonance 104.4 FM (wikipedia), because they're awesome and poor. Mostly I listen to The Bike Show, which does exactly what it says on the tin. It recently had a great double bill on the history and future of the Moulton, which I thoroughly recommend if you enjoy tales of 60s British engineering and "the bicycle as architecture on wheels".

Anyway, I got an email back a few days ago, completely out of the blue.

Dear Tom,

Thanks very much for your generous donation. We are currently putting up some not very glamorous but necessary and useful shelving in the studio, so this donation came in very handy.
Best wishes
Ed

Lovely. No boiler plate, just short and sweet. Put a smile on my face, and reminds me that they still need to spend money on stuff like finding somewhere to put their files, and it's not all about studios and expensive mixing desks.

Funding for core activities is always tricky for charities. Funders and grant givers always want outcomes and deliverables and smiling children, and there's never any money left over for post-it notes or little things like salaries.

Perhaps more charities should project a less glamorous image, and remind us that they still have to do all the boring stuff that everyone does at work. And perhaps then we wouldn't have such unreasonable expectations.

Sponsor a filing cabinet, sir?