Charity Mergers Can Be Ticklish Business

November 12, 2007

Charity Mergers Can Be Ticklish Business

Some charities have found that merging with other groups helps them save money, expand their operations, and increase their effectiveness — but such efforts also can be challenging, reports The New York Times.

Some groups simply merge their fund-raising or managing activities to save money or present a united front.

“I started asking how could a social-services agency like mine compete with organizations like universities, hospitals, and museums that have full-time staff with expertise on planned giving, charitable remainder trusts and other things that bring in big gifts,” says Jeffrey D. Sobel of Safe Space NYC, which is working with two other groups on fund raising. “For us to pay a full-time planned-giving person and have a marketing person would be impossible.”

In full mergers, nonprofit groups have found that picking a name, deciding on pay, and making staff cuts can also create stumbling blocks. The newspaper notes that a recent merger between California’s Peninsula Community Foundation and the Community Foundation Silicon Valley has hit a rough patch, despite its support by several major foundations.

“We have to merge investment portfolios that have been managed differently, we have two incompatible and antiquated I.T. systems,” says Emmett D. Carson, head of the newly merged organization. “And then we have the dreaded ‘C,’ the cultures of two organizations that both climbed the mountain effectively but very differently.”

Read The Chronicle’s recent articles on the California merger, the alliances of numerous animal-protection groups, and efforts by Minnesota Public Radio to acquire new stations.

(Free registration is required to view the Times article, and a paid subscription or short-term pass is required to view the Chronicle articles.)

Commenting is closed for this article.

Previous: Wealthy Foundations and Charities Urged to Spend More Money
Next: From The Chronicle: Online Fund Raising