Oklahoma!
If you’re like me, the closest you’ve ever come to Oklahoma is in a theater. But, I’ve recently discovered some fascinating facts about the Sooner State:
- The world’s first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935.
- In Bristow, Oklahoma it is against the law to serve water to a customer in a restaurant unless one peanut in a shell is also served.
- The first shopping cart was unveiled in Oklahoma in 1937.
- Whaling is illegal in the state of Oklahoma.
- In Tulsa you may not open a soda bottle without the supervision of a licensed engineer.
- The town of Beaver is the Cow Chip Throwing Capital of the World. It’s here that the World Championship Cow Chip Throw is held each April.
And….according to a recent article in Parade Magazine, Oklahomans are the most charitable in the US with an average annual giving close to $1,600.
Now before you run off to your list brokers and re-route all your prospect mailings through Oklahoma, I want to share a quote from 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli:
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
To illustrate this point, I looked at the 2010 revenue by state for one of our clients. When I calculated the annual MEAN giving by donor, it wasn’t Oklahoma sitting on top, but Utah. Seems that the average Utah donor gave $510,000 to this charity in 2010.
You can imagine my disappointment when I calculated the MEDIAN donor value which was a much less fabulous $25 – pretty much in line with the other states.
This is a common phenomenon when looking at states where you may not have a lot of donors, but that also have one or two mega-donors. This is why when looking at measures of central tendency, it’s supremely important not to overlook the MEDIAN (the point at which 50% of the donors fall above and 50% fall below). Journalists tend to “overlook” the median because the results are rarely as exciting as the mean.
So for some final words of wisdom: don’t ever take statistics from journalists or politicians at face value.
Oh, and avoid the town of Beaver in the month of April!
