THE CHRONICLE OF
PHIL A NTHROPY®
The Newspaper of the Nonprofit World
Volume XXIV, No. 12 • May 3, 2012 • $5
As More Charities Promote Matching Gifts,
Donors Grow Skeptical of Campaign Pleas
Grant Making
Gone Wild
By Caroline Preston
IF THE SUMMERTIME MAILING is fundraising’s weak tea, the matching solicitation is its double espres- so.
Wealthy patrons’ pledges to match gifts from others donors do seem to spur contributions
and often help nonprofits raise larger
sums. But because charities are so eager
to call just about any giving opportunity
a match or a challenge, the campaigns
are starting to leave donors skeptical, say
fundraising experts.
“In the tough economy, more nonprofits
are out there with matches, and they’ve
become a lot less credible,” says Alia
McKee, principal at Sea Change Strategies, a fundraising and marketing firm.
In focus groups with donors, she says,
“we’ve heard a lot of folks question the
legitimacy of matches.”
tributions. At the time, they had a very clear definition, says Andrea McManus, president of the Development Group, a fundraising consultancy in Calgary.
No longer.
The notion of a donor’s money going further thanks
to someone else’s gift has spread to all
kinds of appeals. But nobody has set
standards for what constitutes a true
matching gift.
Some fundraisers consider matches to
be gifts that require the charity to raise
additional money, while challenges are
contributions donors make regardless of
whether others give.
But the terms are often used interchangeably. And even with matches, the
charity often receives the full amount
of the donor’s promised contribution,
whether or not it reaches the goal. In
many cases, nonprofits don’t even clarify
with a donor in advance of a campaign
whether a gift is conditional.
All sorts of fundraising opportunities try to capitalize on donors’ desire for
Continued on Page 7
DELAWARE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
All Kinds of Appeals
The tradition gained traction in the
1950s when some big companies offered
to match their employees’ charitable con-
No standards
exist for
matching gifts.
The Awesome Foundation, a three-year-old
grass-roots effort, has gotten attention and
seen results from its small grants to quirky
projects like Jeff Waldman’s efforts to install
swings around Los Angeles. Read more about
the group’s playful approach, Page 23.
Service Charities Seek Ways to Help Their Lowest-Paid Employees Get By
Catholic Charities is among the organizations that are making an effort to reach out to their
lowest-paid workers, helping them gain access to assistance programs and tax credits.
By Nicole Wallace
AS A CERTIFIED NURSING ASSISTANT at a nonprof- it rehabilitation center in central Maine, Hel- en Hanson helps patients with basic activities
healthy people take for granted—eating, dressing,
bathing, and going to the bathroom. Because the 46-
year-old aide works second shift, she earns $10.80 an
hour, a dollar more than the base pay for a nursing
assistant at the center, and she often picks up extra
hours on weekends when wages rise to $12 an hour.
Still, Ms. Hanson says that after she pays the bills
each month, she barely has enough money left for groceries and gas, let alone to put money aside for an
emergency.
“I keep crossing my fingers that nothing drastic hap-
pens with the house,” she says. “I just don’t have the
money to do the repairs.”
Across the country tens of thousands of nursing
assistants, child-care employees, home-health aides,
group-home employees, people who work at after-
school programs, and others provide vital services at
health-care and human-services charities. The work is
physically and emotionally taxing, yet because wages
are so low, these employees face many of the same fi-
nancial challenges as the people they serve.
Nonprofit employers say they want to pay frontline
workers more but can’t because of low government-reimbursement rates and the challenge of raising money from donors to improve wages. With the economy so
troubled in the last several years, recruiting and retaining low-wage workers has gotten easier for organi-
Continued on Page 13
UPI/KEVIN DIE TSCH/NEWSCOM
A Healthy Start
n As the Supreme Court mulls the
fate of the Affordable Care Act,
many foundations are betting on
its future and putting their money behind efforts to help states
put the law in place. Page 25
Easy Money
n More charities are finding that
mobile-payment devices like
the Square are helping them
raise more money from donors
on the go. Page 11
