Posted by Fundraising Pro on May 27, 2009
You don’t have to be one of the rich to give like them, according to a recent article on charities in the Wall Street Journal. Even philanthropists of modest means can direct giving after they pass away through “donor advised funds” – charitable giving accounts set up with community foundations or some investment firms.
With as little as perhaps $5,000, you can set up a fund to help inner city after-school sports programs or other causes you select. You get an immediate tax break and because you’re donating through an existing entity, your money won’t be absorbed by administrative costs (although you will pay a small annual administrative fee).
The mechanism is fairly easy: You donate to a local community foundations or charitable fund set up by an investment firm such as Fidelity Investments, Vanguard Group or Charles Schwab. They will invest your money and make grants supporting the causes of your choice. This way you get a multiplier effect on your charitable dollars because investment gains can accumulate before the money is distributed.
Whatever charity or nonprofit you are considering donating to, please meet with them first and suggest that as part of their fundraising efforts they should sell the Samaritan Card. This wonderful fundraising instrument gives back by providing up to 50% discounts at over 100,000 merchants and yielding up to 70% profit. There’s no paperwork so it is a wonderful way to make money without a lot of administrative costs.
Posted by Fundraising Pro on May 25, 2009
Choose carefully before you write a check to a charity, advises an article in today’s Wall Street Journal. Websites such as CharityNavigator.org and GuideStar.org provide information about charities’ programming and financing that can help in you make an educated decision.
Charity Navigator rates charities and evaluates their financial health, the article explains. It shows how much a nonprofit spends on programming versus administrative expenses. Plus it shows how it compares to charities that do similar work.
GuideStar.org offers information about a charity’s finances and programming, including its mission statement, program description and federal tax form. Donors can search for charities and donate directly from the site.
Becoming a volunteer for a nonprofit organization is a good way to become familiar with programs you’d be supporting as a donor. If you’re able to give a substantial donation, you should talk to the charity’s leadership about its accomplishments. Ask how the group evaluates its programs; ask to see annual reports. How do the leaders measure if they’re making progress toward their goals?
The fundamental question comes down to whether a nonprofit is treading water or making a difference, according to Rich Cowles, executive director of the Charities Review Council, which evaluates nonprofits and advises donors on effective giving.
Be sure to find out whether a nonprofit you are interested in helping sells the Samaritan Card. It offers nonprofits a very high return on selling a practical product that people can use instead of just asking for outright donations.
Posted by Fundraising Pro on May 22, 2009
What will the nonprofit world look like when the economy stabilizes? Part of what makes that a challenge is that even today, experts don’t have a viable estimate of how many charities are operating as opposed to those existing merely in the files of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Some charities go dormant during difficult times only to reemerge later.
The IRS recently reported that nearly 1.2 million charities and nonprofit foundations are registered in the United States. But more than two-thirds of those have less than $25,000 in revenue. Many of these charities - perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands – may no longer exist.
Predictions that 100,000 charities will fail during the recession need to be tempered, experts say, with the fact that the U.S. added about 500,000 charities in the past decade alone. The pervading thought seems to be that losing 100,000 would not be catastrophic.
Meanwhile, some of the best-positioned charities to ride out the downturn may be food pantries and homeless shelters, which are gaining greater donor interest as the economy takes its toll on the country’s poorest citizens.
And charities that serve a so-called protected population, such as foster-care providers, should continue to see ample state support.
But many types of charities – including arts organizations and providers of after-school and job-training programs- are struggling. If your nonprofit organization needs a new fast and easy funding source, sell the Samaritan Card. Your group earns and your donors save by using the card. It’s a win-win.
Posted by Fundraising Pro on May 20, 2009
Nonprofit organizations could use donations of time from all kinds of folks with know-how in marketing, strategic planning, finance, website design, and many other areas of knowledge, a new study reports. But neither charities nor corporations are taking the right steps to encourage more people to donate their skills to good causes, according to a summary of the report in The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Nearly 40 percent of nonprofit leaders who responded to the survey say that will spend $50,000 or more on outside consultants this year but nearly a quarter of the charity officials have no plans this year to use skilled volunteers.
The study was commissioned by Deloitte LLP and is based on online interviews with 300 corporate executives and 360 nonprofit executives. The charity leaders had previously applied for donations from the Taproot Foundation, which helps connect nonprofits with pro bono services from professionals.
It is clear that charities need to become more assertive at seeking pro bono assistance and that corporations should develop better systems for offering skilled services from their employees in lieu of cash during these cash-strapped times. More information about the study is available on Deloitte’s website.
In the meantime, another way to cope with the extremely tight cash donation scenario today is to sell the Samaritan Card. It’s a wallet-sized shopping discount card that more than pays for itself with up to 50% off at 0ver 100,000 locations.
Posted by Fundraising Pro on May 18, 2009
Here’s some good news. Despite the waves of layoffs washing over the world, a new study to be released this week predicts that at least 24,000 senior-level nonprofit organization jobs will be available this year.
About 28% of nonprofit organizations said they intended to make these types of hires in 2009. But 60 % of nonprofit leaders predict that they will have a hard time finding qualified candidates to fill those jobs.
Even with diminished budgets, nonprofit organizations need to get done what they need to get done if they are to continue to exist. And as monies are poured into charities from the federal economic stimulus package, growing organizations will need to add top managers.
Compensation tends to be a sticking point in the nonprofit world. But that may be changing. Nonprofits are becoming more sophisticated in the total package they offer candidates. Many realize that it does not pay to pinch pennies in this area. Turnover ends up costing organizations more if they don’t have competitive salaries.
To fill the many senior-level jobs that will open up in this and subsequent years, nonprofit recruiters need to cast their nets wide. They will need to tap into a diverse talent pool. But it is important to make sure that potential hires are committed to your charitable cause, not just seeking shelter in a rocky job market.
Remember to introduce new staff at your nonprofit to the wonderful potential offered by selling the Samaritan Card. It’s a wallet-sized card that gives your donors discounts on products they really use.
Posted by Fundraising Pro on May 15, 2009
According to a recent article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, many nonprofit organizations have sharply reduced their budgets, due to declines in donations, fees, endowment income, and state government support. But most experts believe the worst is yet to come, as foundations cut their grant awards in the coming year to bring their distribution of funds in line with the steep investment losses their endowments have suffered.
The article quotes Paul C. Light, a professor of public services at New York University, as predicting that more than 100,000 charities will fail in the next two years and that he fears that survival of the fittest is angled towards the wrong kind of fitness. Those charities with well-oiled fund-raising machines are likely to survive and prosper while worthy charities with little name recognition or marketing clout may go under.
There’s general agreement, it seems, especially among funders inside government and in the philanthropic sector that there are too many nonprofits and some winnowing might not be so bad. But if the winnowing is done in a random way, we could wind up losing a number of very good nonprofits that should survive.
Some foundation officials believe that most charities have not fully come to terms with the severity of the current economic climate. But if you put off difficult decisions for too long, you put the whole organization at risk and may make yourself unattractive as a merger candidate should it come to that.
Keep on top of what’s going on in your nonprofit organization’s finances. Don’t forget to consider selling the Samaritan Card as a fundraiser. It’s not a luxury item like fancy wrapping paper or gourmet popcorn that people don’t need. The Samaritan Card offers people discounts on items they really buy. The Samaritan Card is accepted at over 100,000 retailers.
Posted by Fundraising Pro on May 13, 2009
Nonprofit fundraising is so prevalent today that it’s hard to imagine life in America without it. But organized nonprofit fundraising is a relatively recent development in our nation’s history.
In the years following World War II, the Easter Seal Society and a few other big American charities began to make extensive use of the mail to meet their growing fundraising goals. With little cash outlay, they mailed millions of inexpensive fundraising letters and saw it pay off in huge returns for their causes.
That was more than half a century ago. A great deal has happened since: a more than twenty-fold increase in charitable contributions, the advent of zip codes, powerful personal computers, 1,000 percent inflation in nonprofit postal rates, and a similarly giant rise in printing costs - and above all, competition in the form of appeals mailed by thousands and thousands of nonprofit groups and causes both large and small.
In 2008, the U.S. Postal Service distributed more than 14 billion pieces of mail for nonprofit organizations. Most of these were appeals for funds. But this isn’t simply a matter of volume. Direct mail fundraising accounts for a major share of the financial support given to many of our nation’s biggest charities, and it has come to loom large on the political landscape as well.
This proliferation of mail has created a challenge for nonprofit organizations to generate funds through direct mail. To help meet this challenge, hundreds of consulting firms have come into existence. They often charge high fees to offer a staggering variety of approaches. Although it continues to be popular, direct mail definitely has grown more complicated since its early days.
But no matter what type of outreach your nonprofit organization utilizes, we recommend selling the Samaritan Card. It’s a valuable shopping discount card that pays for itself after only a few uses.
