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January 01, 2009

Charity Rings in New Year By Celebrating Last-Minute Donations

Things have been looking up lately for Kenny Emson, senior vice president of development at the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region, in Washington—just in the last three weeks.

Mr. Emson had been projecting that the foundation would close out 2008, the first nine months, of its fiscal year, with about half the amount of money it normally raises. But closing in on $70-million as of December 31, Mr. Emson says that contributions will be down by only 15 percent for the year.

In this economy, that’s not bad at all, he says.

“If you had asked me three weeks ago, I would have said it was the quietest year ever,” says Mr. Emson, who has been with the foundation for 18 years. “But things have changed dramatically for us. Our donors have been unbelievable.”

Mr. Emson says that he thinks one reason for the later-than-usual spurt in donations is that Thanksgiving was celebrated one week later than normal in 2008. As a result, he guesses that donors accustomed to making a year-end gift waited a week or so longer than they usually would.

If you had some year-end fund-raising surprises, we’d love to know about it. Use the comment box below to share your experience.

— Holly Hall

Thursday January 1, 2009 | Permalink

Comments

1. Like most nonprofits, our organization has been anticipating a decrease in donations this year, especially since we are in California, which has been hit especially hard. The surprise? It didn’t happen. In fact, we have raised about 27% more in 2008 than the previous year for our annual fund, and 47% more if we include gifts to a mini-capital campaign we launched. Granted, our annual fundraising goal was small – $1.3 million – so the total dollars needed to achieve the increase wasn’t large. Still, we’re delighted at our success and grateful to our donors.

   — Kym Pietsch, Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA    Jan 5, 06:19 PM    #

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