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May 11, 2008
First Ph.D. in Philanthropy Is Awarded
The United States may lead the world in charitable fund raising and philanthropy, but the country’s first Doctor of Philanthropic Studies, who graduated today in Indianapolis, is Chinese.
Yue (Jen) Shang, a native of Beijing, received her Ph.D. in Philanthropic Studies from Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy, where she will soon join the faculty and help teach fund raisers and other nonprofit officials about donor behavior and other topics.
Ms. Shang, who wrote her dissertation to shed light on why donors give, plans to return to China and conduct research on the psychological underpinnings of philanthropy there.
Ms. Shang was joined in the ceremonies by three fellow students who are expected to finish requirements for their philanthropic studies doctorates this summer. Altogether, 31 students have been admitted to the Ph.D. program, which prepares students to teach and conduct research in philanthropy.
Ms. Shang is one of 10 foreign students in the Ph.D. program, which began in 2004. The other students are from China, Taiwan, Ghana, Germany, Japan, Latvia, South Korea, and United Arab Emirates.
Perhaps the philanthropic studies degree will help promote the spread of civil society to other parts of the globe. What do you think?
—Holly Hall
May 09, 2008
Economy Hobbles Giving by Some Wealthy Donors
Many wealthy baby boomers have cut back their gifts to charity in the last six months — another sign that the nation’s bad economy is starting to hurt charitable fund raising.
A California investment company said it interviewed 500 people who were 60 years old and found that 22 percent of them were giving less because of worries about the economy.
The donors interviewed by Bell Investment Advisors, in Oakland, all had investable assets of $1-million or more.
Other changes participants said they had made because of the poor economy: canceling, shortening, or postponing a vacation (21 percent), reducing retirement savings (18 percent), and postponing their retirement (11 percent).
The Generation Gap in Fund Raising Is a Myth
The generation gap isn’t such a big deal in fund raising, according to a study to be released next week.
While fund raisers often say that baby boomers are very different in their giving styles from their parents, it turns out that other factors — such as income and education level — matter a lot more than the generation in which a donor grew up.
Researchers at Indiana University Center on Philanthropy analyzed data from 10,000 individuals, 80 percent of whom had given to charity. They represented five generations: great (born before 1929), silent (born 1929-1945), boomer (born 1946-1963), generation X (born 1964-1981), and millennial (born since 1981).
The scholars found that the amount people give rise along with their income, levels of education, and frequency of attending religious services. The age of donors didn’t matter at all.
However, the older donors are, the more likely they are to make gifts to religious causes: Seventy-two percent of donors in the great generation reported giving to religious causes, but only 41.5 percent of the millennial donors did.
The reasons people give also divided along generational lines.
Members of the silent generation are ore likely to say that they gave to “control where my money goes instead of having the government do it” or to “provide services the government can’t or won’t.” Millennial donors are more likely to say they gave to “make the world a better place.”
Beyond that, however, the most popular charitable motivations were the same across generations: “to provide for the basic needs of the poor,” “to make my community a better place to live,” “giving the poor a way to help themselves,” “desire to make the world a better place,” and “responsibility to help those with less.”
The study, “Generational Differences in Charitable Giving and in Motivations for Giving,” was commissioned by Campbell & Company, a fund-raising consulting company. The full study will be posted on the company’s Web site on Monday, May 12.
— Holly Hall.
May 08, 2008
Making the Most of Mother's Day
With many charities now soliciting their donors with Mother’s Day appeals, some nonprofit groups hope to raise additional money by combining the special holiday for moms with Father’s Day.
In Newton, N.C., for example, the United Church Homes and Services Foundation, which raises money for nonprofit retirement homes, is holding its first Butterfly Release the weekend after Mother’s Day. Donors who wish to honor their parents (or grandparents) at the event pay $20 per butterfly and the creatures will be released in a brief ceremony, followed by refreshments.
The idea for the event came from a resident in one of the retirement facilities, and it has been popular, the charity’s officials say. So far, they have purchased more than 32 dozen butterflies.
Another facility for the elderly, the Bethany Home, in Ripon, Calif., has created two versions of a direct-mail brochure that it will use in May and June. In honor of Mother’s Day, the first version features women, and asks for a contribution.
It has been mailed to 2,100 households, and another 2,000 copies were distributed to the congregations of eight local churches that founded the home. A similar version of the brochure, featuring multiple generations of men, will be given to the same congregations next month for Father’s Day.
Recipients of the Bethany Home mailings are not being asked to give in anyone’s honor.
“We want to get people to embrace the idea that we have an obligation to seniors,” says Julie Aranjo, director of development.
Why Fund-Raising Appeals Fall Short
Why do so many fund-raising appeals fall short?
Jeff Brooks, a direct-marketing consultant, says part of the problem rests with the fact that fund-raising copy is often wooden and inhuman.
His advice: “Write like a human. Your donors will thank you for it.”
Have you seen examples of atrociously worded fund-raising appeals? If so, please feel free to share by clicking on the comments link below this post.
College Senior Makes $50,000 Pledge
Andrew G. Bennett hasn’t even graduated from Elon University yet, but he’s already a big donor. Mr. Bennett, a senior, plans to donate $50,000 to the university over the next five years.
Mr. Bennett’s gift will go to Safe Rides, a service that provides transportation to students who would otherwise walk home at night or drive after drinking. The gift will allow the program to add a van to its two sedans, and help it add staff members and improve marketing on the campus.
Mr. Bennett says he chose a cause that would allow him to reach as many students as possible.
Mr. Bennett, who has not yet decided what he will do after graduation, says he was inspired by a family friend whose parents made a donation to Elon when he graduated last year.
“For those people who’ve had a great time at college or high school,” he said, “it’s important to be involved, and give back if you can.”
May 07, 2008
Lessons in Diplomacy: Coping With a Donor's Anger
Disgruntled donors often stop giving — sometimes forever.
That’s why it makes sense, when a donor gets mad over a real or imagined slight, to proceed carefully and choose your words wisely.
Mark Drozdowski, a college fund raiser, writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education about how he calmed down a donor who threatened to stop giving after she received a parking ticket on campus.
How have you dealt with angry donors? Let us know what has worked best, and what to avoid, by clicking on the comment link below.
May 06, 2008
Charities Turn Mother's Day Into a Good Cause
Charities are trying to help people celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend — and raise money — with solicitations that tie their missions to motherhood.
“Did you know that Mother’s Day was originally called Mother’s Day for Peace?” asks the Ploughshares Fund, which works to prevent conflict and the use of deadly weapons.
Its Web site tells the story of the woman who proposed the holiday and asks for gifts to the charity’s Mother’s Day Peace Fund, which supports projects to “make the world safer and more peaceful.”
For a gift of $50, the fund sends a handwrittten card to the donor’s mother (or somebody else they want to honor) and the charity will deliver an organic bouquet for a gift of $250 or more.
Share Our Strength, the hunger-relief organization, is sending out an e-mail appeal for online gifts, telling recipients that one out of three single mothers in the United States cannot reliably provide the nutritious food their families need.
Donors are urged to contribute $35, $85, or $270, and can click from the appeal to a Web site that explains how much each sum will do to help a mother buy food.
GlobalGiving, an international-aid group, is collaborating with Johnson & Johnson for an online Hand-Me-Down Auction in which people can bid on items donated by celebrity mothers, including the actresses Julianne Moore and Mariska Hargitay.
GlobalGiving will distribute 100 percent of the proceeds to charities that help “care for the health and well being of mothers and children” worldwide.
Let us know what ideas you have tried to tie solicitations to Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Just click on the comments link to tell us your fund-raising ideas.
May 05, 2008
Charitable Bequests: Another Victim of Hard Economic Times
The economic downturn affects many types of gifts, but many charity officials might have thought bequests would be a bit more insulated than other types of donations. After all, nobody chooses when to die.
But in many charitable bequests, donors leave real estate, stock, or other assets that have dropped sharply in value in recent months — so that means that less money will pass on to charity.
It will take about two years until charities will feel the impact of today’s downturn on bequest income, according to Robert F. Sharpe, a Memphis planned-giving consultant. It takes that long to settle most estates, he says. And since most donors give a fixed amount to their heirs and leave what is left over for charities, the leftovers could be much smaller than they would have been when the economy was booming.
— Holly HallMay 04, 2008
Crusading Against Cutbacks in a Rocky Economy
As local governments face increasingly tight budgets, many nonprofit groups are scrambling to keep money they receive from government agencies.
In California, charities in Santa Clara last year managed to stave off a major budget cut in the money that the county provides for services to the needy.
The Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits formed an unusual alliance with a local union that represents about 1,000 county workers who could have lost their jobs if the government cut spending. They argued to county supervisors that the cuts would cause “major disruption to our community systems of care that will force clients to more expensive inpatient, emergency, and other institutional care.”
Over nine months, the charities and workers attended more than 50 strategy sessions, public hearings, and one-on-one meetings with policy makers, county department heads, and elected officials, according to Patricia Gardner, the nonprofit council’s executive director. In the end, they persuaded the county to restore $18-million of the $20-million that it initially planned to cut
Ms. Gardner says the grass-roots effort never would never have worked if the council hadn’t spent the past few years building strong relations with county agencies and government officials. What’s more, she say, the charities and labor union all agreed on a list of programs it consider most in need of money.
“We weren’t saying ‘Choose me, choose me,’ but this was tricky because each organization was used to advocating for themselves,” Ms. Gardner says. “But if we did that, we would be fighting over the same dollar, when what we really need is $2.”
Copyright © 2008 The Chronicle of Philanthropy