In hindsight, the problem with your fundraiser was obvious. There were two communications channels: one private channel for people who contributed, and one channel for everyone else. Very few people will post a second message after they've already posted one, so the existence of the private channel prevented contributors from posting on the mailing list. Removing all the contributors from the public channel left only nay-sayers and an environment that favored further nay-saying. The fix would be to merge the two channels: publish the messages received from contributors, unless they request otherwise.