Fund Raisers Say Donors Are Ready to Return to Making Endowment Gifts
will place scientists at three of
Dow’s manufacturing sites to
help the company determine
the value of natural resources
on or close to the sites. Dow
has pledged to use that information to minimize the harm
its business operations do to
the environment.
Both organizations have
promised to share the Nature
Conservancy’s findings widely
in hopes of motivating other
companies to adopt similar approaches.
Nature Conservancy officials
concede that the agreement
with Dow is likely to draw criticism from people who question
the chemical company’s environmental record and motives.
But they say the new alliance
exemplifies the type of in-depth
collaboration between business
Continued from Page 19
and charity that is needed to
protect natural habitats.
Make Endowments
‘Sexy’
While many donors have focused on immediate needs,
rather than supporting endowments, building projects, and
other capital projects during
the economic downturn, some
are now ready to focus on long-term concerns, says Dyan Sublett, chief fund raiser at the
YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles.
As hard times have dragged
on, people’s mind-set has shift-
ed, she says. “The psychology
of the recession has caused my
board to have more conversa-
tions about sustainability and
endowment.”
One board member and his
wife recently pledged $2-mil-
lion to the Y’s endowment, Ms.
Sublett says. “He said it was
important to make sure the
organization is here for every
generation.”
Other board members, par-
ticularly those who have vol-
unteered for many years, she
says, have begun looking at the
Y’s long-term future over the
last few months.
Consultants in Philanthropic Management
Offer Special Perks
When people join the Delaware Museum of Natural History, in Wilmington, they get a
lot more than free admission to
its collections.
Because the museum belongs to the Association of Sci-ence-Technology Centers, any
donor who contributes at least
$45 can also make free visits to
more than 250 museums and
other institutions that are scattered throughout the United
States and other countries.
“This is quite a savings,”
says Dawn Swartout, director
of development at the natural
history museum. “It is our big-
gest selling point.”
Among the other perks: Do-
nors can attend members-only
preview parties for the three or
four traveling exhibits the mu-
seum features each year.
“We are trying to bundle
things, do things to give people
value for their money, and being as verbal about it as we
can,” says Ms. Swartout.
decided to take that step after
it figured out that its online
donors give an average of $98
apiece. Many of those donors
had made previous mail gifts
that were much smaller, only
about $38 on average.
So this month, the Salvation
Army is sending a direct-mail
solicitation that teases readers by telling them only part of
the real-life story of “Sally,” a
homeless alcoholic woman who
came to the charity’s shelter on
one of the coldest nights of the
year.
The mailing urges recipients to go online to get the rest
of Sally’s story. There they
will learn how she turned her
life around with help from
the charity, and they can also
watch a video interview with
her that the charity made with
an inexpensive hand-held camera.
“We are hoping this will pay
off, not just donation-wise but
getting the fuller story out
about the full breadth of services we provide,” says Christopher McGown, the charity’s divisional development director.
“This is a real-life example of
what we do every day.”
GG+A IS HONORED TO PARTNER WITH OUR NEWEST CLIENTS
IN PURSUIT OF SUSTAINABLE, EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS.
Aurora Health Foundation
Hôpital Albert Schweitzer
Haiti
University of Mississippi
Medical Center
Illinois Junior Golf
Association
University of New England
Punahou School
KLRN
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Association
Villanova University School
of Law
Pitch Sponsorships
to Family Funds
Like many institutions, the
Tulsa Symphony has been
hard pressed to find corporate
donors since 2008 when the financial crisis hit.
“It’s become increasingly difficult to tap corporate contributions, even when asking for
educational music programs
serving low-income students,”
says Martha Mattes, the symphony’s grants coordinator.
Local companies have also
been unwilling to sponsor concerts or provide general operating support, she says.
The symphony did succeed,
however, when it asked local
family foundations to sponsor
concerts for $50,000 each in
2010. The family funds had a
record of supporting the arts,
and three of them liked the
idea so much that they agreed
to sponsor the concerts. Ms.
Mattes hopes to enlist four or
five family funds as sponsors in
the coming year.
Enlist Beneficiaries
to Give
Creative Capital Foundation,
a New York charity that helps
artists become self-sufficient by
providing financial aid, career
counseling, and other services,
raises money from the artists
it assists.
More than 100 of the 406
artists who have received
grants from the decade-old organization are also donors who
give in response to year-end
solicitations, says Sophie Henderson, the charity’s director of
external affairs.
In addition, a third of the
more than 20 artists who participated in the organization’s
first art auction held last year
donated pieces rather than accepting the charity’s offer to receive half of the winning bid on
their work.
The foundation is now planning a second auction, says Ms.
Henderson, and “artists are
lining up to donate anew.”
WE WELCOME THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO THE SAME WITH YOU.
Push Donors to
Give Online
Many charities have realized that online gifts are larger
than the ones they get in the
mail, but few are taking creative steps to persuade their
traditional donors to move to
the Internet.
The Salvation Army Kentucky and Tennessee Division,
however, is testing an effort to
turn its mail donors into Internet supporters. The charity
Upgrade Fund
Raisers’ Skills
The YMCA of Metropolitan
Los Angeles is working closely
with the executive directors of
its 25 branches to strengthen
their boards and improve fund
raising. Dyan Sublett, the chief
development officer of the Y,
also hired a fund-raising consulting company that specializes in helping small charities,
and it worked with one branch
struggling to meet its annual
goal to raise $220,000.
The company, which was
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