How RPP is responding to COVID-19

Fundraising in a time of social distancing and self-isolating is a challenge.

Why? Because fundraising is inherently social.

Fundraisers are social gatherings. Meetings are best done in person. Spending time one on one with our clients is essential.

But, for now, we have to recalibrate our actions for the greater good, and for the good of our staff, our clients and our colleagues.

This week, we made the difficult but necessary decision to encourage our clients to cancel their fundraising events for the next four weeks, to move all of our client meetings and call time from in-person to remote, and to have our staff work from home beginning on Monday, March 16th.

Challenges are opportunities for innovation, and we will innovate to help our clients meet their goals in the coming days, weeks and months.

Democracy cannot stop, elections won’t stop, and we are prepared to make sure our clients have the tools they need to run winning campaigns in this uncertain time.

As Dr. Val Arkoosh, Chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners said earlier this week, “We must all begin to put the greater good of our community ahead of our personal convenience.”

That’s what we are doing.

We wanted to share with you the text of the email we sent to our clients on Thursday. For our fellow fundraisers, friends in the political space and fellow small business owners, if you are still struggling with how to proceed (and we struggled for several days on how to do this), we are here for you.

We’ll get through this, together.

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Good afternoon, 

As the situation regarding the coronavirus continues to evolve, we wanted to give you and all of our clients an update on how RPP is approaching the matter to ensure the safety and wellness of our staff, and to ensure that we are able to continue to provide the highest level of service to each of our clients during this time.

Beginning Monday, March 16th, our staff will begin working exclusively from home, and with extraordinarily limited exceptions, will not be working from our office in Philadelphia. This is to help reduce the risk of illness to our staff, colleagues in our suite, and our clients. We are taking this step proactively to ensure that we are able to continue to provide top quality service to all of you if circumstances change in the coming days and weeks. 

In addition, following guidance from public health officials regionally and nationally, responding to growing concerns from supporters, and once again in an effort to be proactive to ensure the best possible outcomes (including holding successful events and meeting fundraising goals), we are advising that all fundraising events through April 15th be cancelled and rescheduled after May 31st.

Even from a decentralized position, we are committed to achieving our shared goals, continuing to work hard with our clients to meet those goals, and to do all we can to provide the best possible service. To that end, while we will not be able to continue to staff call time in person, we can continue call time schedules on an on-going basis in a remote capacity. Our staff will continue to check mail and process contributions, and generally continue business as usual, but again, just from a decentralized position, and with a little more forward planning necessary.

Your RPP principal will be reaching out to you directly in the next 24 hours, if they have not already done so, to discuss your fundraising schedule for the spring including scheduled call time, events and meetings, so that we can make the necessary changes.

If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to your RPP project manager, principal, Aubrey or me at any time.

Our hope is that this is short lived. We are prepared to continue to provide excellent service to you, and look forward to continuing our work together in the days and weeks ahead.

Thank you for placing your trust and confidence in our team.