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July 05, 2009

Holiday Gift Guides: Are They Worthwhile for Charities?

Now that July 4 is over, Betsy Stone, a charity consultant in Sacramento, is already thinking about Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the onslaught of charity gift guides that come out that time of year.

She is “thinking out loud” on her blog The Philanthrophile about whether the holiday philanthropy guides some newspapers and magazines publish are worthwhile.

Her conclusion, after hearing from some nonprofit groups that have used them: not really.

“It could even hurt them by diminishing the amount of dollars available for direct contributions from potential corporate sponsors,” she writes.

Charities have to pay to appear in these guides, and usually they seek corporate underwriters to cover the costs (in exchange for the company’s name appearing in the ad). In Sacramento, at least, Ms. Stone says, companies take the money spent on underwriting out of their philanthropic budgets, not their ad budgets.

“When nonprofits approach them for direct contributions or to sponsor events that may result in friend raising or fund raising, the businesses may figure they’ve already done their bit for that organization,” Ms. Stone writes.

She concludes: “It may be good for the business’ reputation to be seen as a community good guy, but better use can be made of the money for the nonprofit. Several nonprofits say they have received a donation or two based on the info published in the guide, but they might have gotten a better return if they had worked directly with the business.”

What are your experiences with holiday giving guides?

— Brennen Jensen

Sunday July 5, 2009 | Permalink

Comments

1. The good news is there is a better way. The Connecticut Council for Philanthropy has done a guide for years and the nonprofits put their “needs” lists in it for free. The guide is quite popular and used to be an insert in the state’s largest newspaper. It might be going fully electronic now. As always, though, most nonprofits fail to take advantage of even these free opportunities for public notice, just as they don’t add to free listings in nonprofit directories, guides to human services, etc. etc. That’s a much bigger problem than the one Betsy is worried about.

   — Rick Schwartz    Jul 6, 10:28 PM    #

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