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November 06, 2009
Balancing the Need for Flexible Support With Donors' Desire to Measure Results
Donors increasingly want to see the results of their giving. That desire has contributed to the success of Kiva, the Web site that matches lenders in the United States with small business owners in poor countries.
And it has posed challenges for groups like Doctors Without Borders, the international medical charity, which typically does not raise money for specific programs or emergencies.
Doctors Without Borders emphasizes the importance of unrestricted support because the group doesn’t want to end up with more than it needs for one disaster and not enough for another, says Jennifer Tierney, director of development.
This year, the charity developed some fund-raising approaches meant to appeal to results-focused donors while also helping to maintain the organization’s independence and emphasis on flexible support.
They include:
- Giving donors the chance to support broad causes, like nutrition or HIV/AIDS. Doctors Without Borders determined that it could accept gifts for such purposes without hampering its ability to respond effectively. The response so far has been good: Morgan Stanley recently approved a $250,000 grant for Doctors Without Borders’ nutrition programs.
- Sending e-mail messages to supporters about its work helping victims of a disaster. After the recent disasters in the Asia Pacific, Doctors Without Borders contacted its supporters, not to ask for restricted gifts, but to inform them of the work its doctors were doing in those places. The solicitations resulted in about $70,000.
- Creating an online tool that allows donors to better understand how Doctors Without Borders responds to disasters, and why it needs flexible support. The Be There 1st campaign raised $25,000 in its two weeks. (For more, see this Chronicle article).
What are your thoughts on the tension between unrestricted money and showing results? What potential solutions has your organization identified?
CNN Calls Fund Raising One of the Most Stressful Jobs
With today’s news that the unemployment rate has breached 10 percent, most Americans, including nonprofit workers, are probably thankful they have a job.
But CNN is calling one charity position — fund raiser — one of the worst jobs in the country.
On a list of 15 jobs that pay poorly and are stressful, fund raiser is No. 7, not too far from parole officer and high-school teacher. “No matter the cause, asking people to part with their money is not easy. And it doesn’t just happen at cocktail parties,” says the cable news channel on its Web site.
Using a survey of 36,000 people by Payscale.com, CNN says the median pay for a fund raiser is $42,700 and 67 percent of fund raisers polled said their work is stressful.
Fund raiser isn’t the only nonprofit job listed. In fact, it seems CNN went out of its way to mention work that is often performed by charities. They include: assisted living director, minister, curator, substance-abuse counselor, music director at a church, membership manager, and social worker.
Of course, news reporter is No. 4 on the stressful-job list so maybe CNN thought misery loves company.
Economy Depresses Capital and Endowment Giving Most, Survey Finds
The sour economy has put more of a damper on capital and endowment gifts than those for operating expenses, according to a new survey.
In the survey of 43 institutions that have completed fiscal 2009, pledges in fiscal 2009 declined by an average of 33 percent compared with fiscal 2008.
Cash gifts to pay for buildings and other capital projects to organizations in the survey — mostly private schools and colleges and universities — dropped by an average of 26 percent compared with fiscal 2008. Endowment gifts in 2009 had the next steepest drop, 19 percent on average.
Meanwhile, gifts that organizations could use for operating costs — including both those earmarked for such purposes and unrestricted donations — fared better. Earmarked gifts declined by 4 percent and unrestricted donations by 7 percent.
The survey, conducted by Marts & Lundy, a Lyndhurst, N.J., fund-raising consulting firm, uncovered some tactics that institutions are using to motivate donors to give even though they are worried about the economy.
For example, one institution asked a donor to endow a scholarship fund with $100,000, payable over five years, but the donor hesitated to make a firm commitment because of the economy. The organization persuaded the donor to instead pledge $5,000 per year — the same amount that the $100,000 fund would have produced annually — with the idea of fully endowing the scholarship once the economy improves.
A report about the survey and the full results may be downloaded from the company’s Web site. Free registration is required.
November 05, 2009
Charity Receives Unusable World Series Apparel
It seems some needy Indonesians will be wearing Philadelphia Phillies T-shirts in the months ahead.
After each World Series, Major League Baseball is left with merchandise that is unusable because it touts the losing team as world champions. (Like other sports organizations, the league produces apparel before the outcome of the championship games.)
To make sure the hats and other items don’t go to waste, Major League Baseball donates them to World Vision, an international antipoverty group in Federal Way, Wash.
On its Web site, World Vision says the discarded Phillies apparel will go to children and families in Indonesia who are recovering from the earthquake that hit in September.
The clothing is in addition to the 1,300 pieces of Los Angeles Angels’ and Los Angeles Dodgers’ apparel that World Vision received when those teams lost the American League and National League championship series, respectively.
The charity says in some cases the baseball donations are the first new article of clothing the recipients have ever owned.
So even if you’re not happy the New York Yankees won last night, there is some good news coming out of the series.
November 03, 2009
Crafting Winning Appeals: Presenting Examples of Impact
The Chronicle gives fund raisers the chance to have their peers critique drafts of their appeal letters to donors.
Today we offer a letter from Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, in Santa Fe, N.M. It was submitted by Laura Sullivan, the organization’s development director.
Ms. Sullivan said the letter will be printed on 8.5-inch by 14-inch paper with a tear-off reply form at the bottom and will be sent with a self-addressed return envelope. The mailing will also include a fund-raising brochure.
The organization plans to send the letter to donors who have given to the organization in the past three years, volunteers, patrons, and other prospects.
The brochure will replicate the examples that are included in the bulleted section of the letter below.
Ms. Sullivan would like to hear your advice on whether it is appropriate to repeat that information in the brochure or whether it should include different examples of the organization’s impact.
Below is the draft of her letter. Please offer your constructive feedback in the comments section.
Dear _____,
Recently, I had the great honor of representing the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. There I saw Rwandan President Paul Kagame, along with five other inspirational individuals, receive the Clinton Global Citizen Award, at a ceremony attended by a 1,000 dignitaries and heads-of-state.
It was three artists from Haiti and Nigeria who created the stunning commemorative awards presented that evening. Former President Clinton commissioned these awards in collaboration with our Market. Later in the awards program, a brief video that featured these Market artists took center stage. It was a great moment for the awardees, for our Market and for the world’s folk artists.
Haitian artist Michée Ramil Remy crafted his award from a recycled steel oil drum, continuing a blacksmithing tradition that dates to the 1950s. As a result of Michée’s participation in the Market—where he earned over $27,000 this year—Michée reports that he has more work ever before, employs more workers, and is helping others in his community. Michée and his family have been given the opportunity to lift themselves from the grinding poverty that plagues so many in his country.
Your generous support of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market provides extraordinary opportunity and creates change for folk art entrepreneurs like Michée from around the world.
We thank you for your most recent donation of $_______. Your gift helped make it possible for our organization to produce a Market that attracted record-breaking crowds, generate $1.95 million in sales, and send 90% of those dollars home with the artists. Your donation also positively affected our local community as the Market created a $14 million economic impact through tourism and taxes paid.
I am asking you now to consider increasing your support of the Folk Art Market— to help empower artists, give them dignified work, and provide them with a global market in which to sell their work.
In the enclosed brochure, we’ve recounted the stories of three women who attended the Market and whose lives have changed as a result of your generosity. Here are some recent updates.
• Nurse Thembeni from Swaziland earned enough for members of her co-op so that they could buy shoes and school uniforms for their children. They were also able to buy a week’s supply of food for the Magojela village soup kitchen that feeds orphaned and vulnerable children who are victims of the widespread AIDS epidemic. As formal recognition for her success, the tribal chief appointed Nurse to a leadership position to oversee poverty alleviation projects.
• Manjula Devi Maithil Bahun from Nepal, who came to Santa Fe on behalf of the 50 women at the Janakpur Women’s Development Center, went home with enough in earnings to support ten months’ salary for all the co-op artists. The center reports that these funds made it possible for the women to send their children to school, pay for family food and medical expenses, and in some cases purchase land.
• Lubisia Membache represented the Wounaan National Congress, a group of some 8,000 indigenous people based in the Darien rain forests of Panama. They attended the Market in 2009 for the first time as an independent group without sponsorship from any outside organization. Their earnings provide them with capital to fight for title to their ancestral lands and make progress towards self-determination.
Folk artists around the world need markets. The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market provides a venue for artists to succeed in the global marketplace beyond their dreams and to begin the path to self-sufficiency.
Your financial support will help more than ever in this challenging year to continue our important work that resonates around the world. To economize, we have reduced our projected expenses by 3%. Administrative costs are just 20% of our budget, all of which are covered by income that we earn at the Market from ticket sales and the like. You can rest assured that your gift directly supports the participation of Market artists and programs.
With your contribution, we can reach our 2010 fundraising goal of $558,000 in private giving—to provide more opportunity and create change in communities across the globe. Thank you for making the world’s folk artists a priority in your charitable giving. I look forward to hearing from you again this year.
Best regards,
Charlene Cerny
Executive Director
P.S. To help, simply mail the reply form below with your gift or pledge. You may also make a monthly gift to sustain the work of the Folk Art Market year-round. Or, make an online gift at folkartmarket.org.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments space below. To submit your letter for a critique, e-mail the Chronicle Web editor, Peter Panepento.
November 02, 2009
Men and Women Make Bequests at Equal Rates, Study Finds
Men and women who support charities during their lifetimes are about equally likely to provide for charities in their wills, according to new research by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, in Indianapolis.
Among donors who have a will, 17.2 percent of men and 15.1 percent of women included a bequest in that document, according to the center’s study.
The report also found no difference between single men and single women in their likelihood of planning bequests. Single individuals of either gender were more likely than either married or widowed supporters of charities to arrange charitable bequests, said the study. About one in four single donors who have wills have made provision for planned giving.
However, among people who attend often attend religious services, men were more likely to report having provided for charities in their wills, according to researchers.
The data not only contradicts conventional wisdom that women are more likely to leave money to charities, but also points to untapped potential for arranging planned gifts, says Una Osili, director of research at the Center on Philanthropy. “I think just that knowledge is very important,” she says. “There’s still a large percentage of the population that don’t have a charitable bequest.”
The study— which examined the attitudes of donors who had set up bequests, those who had a will but no bequest, and those without a will,—was financially supported by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, in Alexandria, Va., and by Legacy Leaders, a consulting firm with offices in Philadelphia and Toronto.
Although men and women were equally likely to set aside a portion of their estates for charities, Center on Philanthropy researchers found some nuances in the reasons why such donors gave.
Among the findings:
- All donors said a sense of responsibility to help those less fortunate than themselves was their strongest motivation for giving. However, a larger percentage of female donors with bequests cited that reason than did their male counterparts—76.4 percent of women to 67.9 percent of men.
- Religious beliefs were cited as the second strongest motivator by all donors. Third among motivations for giving cited by all those respondents who had set up wills was a belief that charities serve society more efficiently than does government or businesses (reported by 65.2 percent of females and 62 percent of males who had set up bequests).
- However, meeting others’ material needs (cited by 40 percent of men and 51.8 percent of women) was the fourth most commonly cited motivation for giving among donors who have wills but have not set up bequests. Past experience with a charity as a client or knowing someone who was a charity client was the fifth most commonly cited motivation for giving among this group.
— Heather Joslyn
November 01, 2009
Big Fund Sees Hopeful Signs for Year-End Giving
As the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund — which raises more money than all but two other charities in the United States — enters the year-end giving season, its leaders say they see some promising fund-raising and giving trends despite the bleak economy.
In the quarter ending September 30, contributions to the organization’s donor-advised funds totaled $397-million. While that’s 27 percent less than the organization received in the same quarter of 2008, contributions have improved somewhat since Fidelity reported a 40-percent decrease earlier this year.
Donor-advised funds work like charity checking accounts — donors put money in to the funds and then earmark it whenever they want for the causes they care about.
In a hopeful sign for struggling charities, Fidelity says more of its donors are using their accounts to make unrestricted contributions to charities to use “where needed most.” That type of gift accounted for 43 percent of grants made from Fidelity donor-advised accounts as of September 30, up from 37 percent in 2008.
In total, grants made from donors’ Fidelity accounts amounted to more than $658-million as of September 30, a 12-percent decline from the same time last year. But Fidelity officials said that, by year’s end, they expect the outgoing grants “to be close to $1-billion,” comparable to what they were in both 2007 and 2008.
Fidelity ranked No. 3 in the new edition of the Philanthropy 400, The Chronicle’s ranking of the charities that raise the most from private sources. It was preceded by United Way Worldwide and the Salvation Army.
October 29, 2009
Aid Group Taps Book Clubs to Help Raise Money and Awareness
On the fourth Monday of each month, Rufi Natarajan gathers with friends at a Houston café for a book-club meeting. The conversation begins at 6:30 and typically lasts for two hours — but last month’s discussion is continuing well beyond that.
Ms. Natarajan’s book group is one of more than 430 that are participating in a project by Mercy Corps, the international aid charity, centered on a new book by the journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn.
The book, Half the Sky, argues that many of society’s problems can be alleviated by improving the status of women. Mercy Corps, which recently started a campaign to advance the idea that investing in women can fight global hunger, is using the book to win support for that effort.
The charity issued a challenge to book clubs around the world: Don’t just read the book, take action. Raise money for Mercy Corp’s campaign, recruit others to read the book, draw attention to global hunger, and push politicians to do more.
The book group that compiles the most impressive “record of activism” by mid-June 2010 will be receive a visit from Mr. Kristof and Ms. Wudunn, who will hold a discussion with the winning book-club members.
Participating book clubs also get exclusive discussion questions from the authors, bookmarks from India, and updates on news and events on Half the Sky.
Joy Portella, director of communications with Mercy Corps, says the charity learned about Half the Sky shortly before its publication and realized its message dovetailed perfectly with the group’s new antihunger campaign focused on women, called One Table.
The charity hasn’t done much marketing — mostly relying on social-media and e-mail outreach — but its participating book clubs so far include groups from the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and many other countries.
While Mercy Corps hasn’t set a goal for how much it hopes to raise from the book clubs, says Ms. Portella, the overall fund-raising goal for the One Table effort is $3-million.
Like many of those participating in the book-club effort, Ms. Natarajan, who works in real estate in Houston, had never contributed to Mercy Corps before. But she persuaded her book club to get involved after reading an article by Mr. Kristof, a columnist in The New York Times, which eventually led her to sign up for the charity’s e-mails and learn about the book-group effort.
Ms. Natarajan considers herself educated on women’s issues and world affairs. She grew up in Pakistan, holds a master’s degree in South Asian history, and has served on the board of a local Planned Parenthood.
But she says she still found the book, with its discussions of honor killings, forced prostitution, and mass rape, very difficult to read. “There was anger and disbelief that women actually live under these types of conditions,” she says. “Across the board, everyone felt like we had to do something to help.”
Her book-group members plan together to make a donation to Mercy Corps — they have not yet decided how much — and have been recruiting other clubs to sign on to the initiative. Ms. Natarajan has written about the book and the competition for the publication of her local American Association of University Women. (Her book club is affiliated with the group.)
She says she has also been purchasing copies of the book for friends and acquaintances and has convinced her son, among many others, to read it.
October 28, 2009
Americans Unsure About Social Media's Charity Benefits, Survey Finds
Americans seem to be conflicted about the role of social networks as a way to support the causes they care about.
According to a new survey, while nearly eight in 10 people who use new media think the technology can help companies and nonprofit organizations to raise money and awareness for causes, fewer than one in five has made a donation using the tools.
In September Cone, a Boston marketing firm, asked 587 people who use new media a series of questions about how they use the technology to interact with companies and nonprofit organizations.
For the study, the company defined new media as “dialogue among individuals or groups” on social networks, blogs, Twitter, online games, mobile devices, message boards, and sites that allow people to share photos, audio, and video. In some cases, the company also included e-mail and Web sites.
Nearly three quarters of respondents agreed with the statement that new media raise their awareness about causes but do not motivate them to do any more to help, and 39 percent said they didn’t trust that their efforts would actually help the cause.
Among the other reasons participants sited for the lack of engagement:
- I’d rather spend my time and/or money supporting causes offline. (31 percent)
- I didn’t see any existing results or impacts. (27 percent)
- I felt overwhelmed by the number of causes on new media. (22 percent)
- My favorite issue, cause, or organization doesn’t use new media. (19 percent)
- I didn’t understand the tool/application. (17 percent)
“Americans are actively engaged with causes on new media, but they’re lacking a degree of trust that takes them to the next level of engagement,” Alison DaSilva, Cone’s executive vice president of cause branding, said in a written statement. “Organizations can overcome this barrier by showing tangible and compelling results, offering multiple consumer touch points, and making the bridge to offline activities wherever possible.”
Church Donations Remain Resilient This Year, Study Finds
More than 70 percent of churches nationwide raised as much or more money in the first half of this year as they did during the same period in 2008, according to a new study.
The study, based on 1,540 mostly Protestant congregations surveyed in August, found that 37 percent raised more and another 34 percent raised the same amount in the first six months of 2009 as they had in 2008. Less than a third reported a decline in donations.
However, compared with a similar survey conducted in 2008, higher percentages of the churches reported a decrease in donations, while lower percentages reported a rise. “This may indicate that the recession has had a greater impact on congregations’ fund-raising receipts in 2009 compared to 2008,” the researchers wrote in a release summarizing their key findings.
The research was a joint project of the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving at Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy and the Alban Institute, a membership organization for congregational leaders.
A third of the congregations in the survey reported making budget cuts in the first half of this year, and another 25 percent reported a flat budget. Nevertheless, most churches retained their efforts to provide needed services in their communities, said William Enright, director of the Lake Institute. When forced to make cuts, he said, they were more likely to freeze salaries and cut back on utilities than they were to cut services.
While some congregations in the survey increased their donations of food and clothing to food banks and shelters this year, others responded to the recession in less traditional ways: holding employment fairs, starting a community garden, or offering financial-planning services.
“I was struck by the selflessness of many congregations,” said Mr. Enright. “Many are having to cut back, but they are maintaining their outreach to their communities. This is a story to be celebrated.”
Copyright © 2009 The Chronicle of Philanthropy