The Masonic Roundtable: Episode 8 - Fundraising

Last night's Roundtable I had to miss because of my lodge's third degree (which was spectacular, BTW). Thankfully, we had a proper host show up, Tom Accuosti from the Tao of Masonry. Tom and I go way back.

Last night's episode was on fundraising. It's an interesting discussion. Personally, I feel that lodges should only fundraise for external causes. Fundraising and dues as an interlocking discussion. Obviously, we must cover shortcomings in our budgets but frankly, those shortcomings should come from dues and banked money from dues over the years.

My usual statement is that the public should not be paying for Masonry. Masonry isn't public. Most of our activities are for the individual brothers. By having the public pay for us, we admit that 1) we don't value the Fraternity enough to cover our own expenses and 2) we expect others to pay for it.

This doesn't mean that we can't fundraise. My own lodge hosts a yearly waffle breakfast where all the proceeds go to high school scholarships. I think this is good and it also gets the public in to support their local students. It's a great feeling knowing that the community is coming together to help out our students. But, again, this is for an external cause, not keeping the water bill paid and lights on.

Great show, guys! I really enjoyed it. I'll see you next week. And Jason, glad to see you have a blog going. Visit the 2 Foot Ruler blog here.