Summary
Contents
Subject index
The Handbook of Community Practice is the first volume in this field, encompassing community development, organizing, planning, and social change, and the first community practice text that provides in-depth treatment of globalization—including its impact on communities in the United States and in international development work. The Handbook is grounded in participatory and empowerment practice including social change, social and economic development, feminist practice, community-collaboratives, and engagement in diverse communities. It utilizes the social development perspective and employs analyses of persistent poverty, policy practice, and community research approaches as well as providing strategies for advocacy and social and legislative action.
Fundraising, Programming, and Community Organizing: Working with Donors, Investors, Collaborators, and Purchasers
Fundraising, Programming, and Community Organizing: Working with Donors, Investors, Collaborators, and Purchasers
A chicken is an egg's way of raising another egg.
To be effective programmatically, community organizers and their constituents must be able to manage in a complex funding environment populated by donors, investors, competitors and collaborators, and purchasers representing the private, voluntary, and public sectors.
Fundraising—whether through grant procurement, contracts, individual donor solicitation, campaigns, special events, or sales—has become a highly professionalized community practice activity, indistinguishable from community organizing program development. The term fundraising is used in this chapter to include both cash and non-cash (in-kind) contributions. The latter include donated or loaned real property, equipment and supplies, volunteer efforts, and other resources that have a cash equivalent. The fundraising environment for community practitioners has never been better. There are more dollars and non-cash resources available to them from a larger number of suppliers than ever before. However, there is also more demand for those resources from a growing number of competitors who are savvy in both locating potential suppliers and securing their support. It can be a very confusing environment for those new to fundraising.
To demystify the fundraising environment, we'll begin by exploring its characteristics, which include
- a dramatic dollar growth in gifts from foundation and individual donors;
- the expanding use of philanthropy as a business strategy by corporate investors;
- the expanding range and activism of suppliers, competitors, and collaborators in the voluntary (nonprofit) sector;
- the transformation of domestic government agencies from service providers to purchasers of these services via contracts with the nonprofit sector;
- the professionalization of fundraising; and
- an increasingly competitive fundraising environment for nonprofits.
We then examine the implications of this environment for resource and program development. The chapter concludes with recommendations on constructing a community organizer's electronic and print library that can be used by community groups and professionals to more effectively manage the funding environment.
The Fundraising Environment
The funding environment is populated by private donors, corporate investors, voluntary sector competitors and collaborators, and government purchasers of services. We will take them one at a time.
The Donors: Individuals and Foundations
The good news is that donors have more to give and are giving more than ever before. Private philanthropy has grown by more than 10% per year since 1995. The number of foundations and private trusts grew by about 30%, and their assets doubled during the 1990s.∗ Not even the economic slowdown of 2000 and 2001 and downturn of 2002 and 2003 seem to have dampened the enthusiasm of the well-to-do to do good. Nor is gift giving limited to the rich. Many campaigns have mass appeal, and grassroots fundraising methods, which community organizations employ, are often aimed more at “people-raising” than fundraising.
∗ The Foundation Center. (2004). Highlights of the Foundation Centers Foundation giving trends. Retrieved June 14, 2004, from http://fndcenter.org/research/trends_analysis/pdf/04fgthiltes.pdf.
Dollars can be solicited through mass appeals or from specific individuals or members of identifiable groups. For example, an annual fundraising letter from the March of Dimes or the American Cancer Association is a direct appeal cast over a very large nationwide net. A telephone campaign seeking support for a regional health clinic is likely to be targeted only to residents of the area to be served. A one-time bricks-and-mortar campaign to expand a church's recreation center may appeal only to current parishioners. More time is spent per person, and the returns are likely to be greater in targeted rather than mass campaigns.
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