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Nancy Smith, 62, of Bend, left, donates a bag of food to Linda Orcelletto, 44, the community relations coordinator of Bend’s Community Center, at the Mt. Bachelor ski area bus parked on Century Drive near Safeway on Friday.
Pete Erickson / The Bulletin
The tricky task of soliciting donations in a downturn
By Andrew Moore / The Bulletin
Published: November 10. 2008 4:00AM PSTWith the economic downturn, nonprofits are having to rethink or refine “the ask” when it comes to soliciting donations, according to representatives of the nonprofit sector.
Kelly Schukart, the director of development and communications for Bend-based Saving Grace, formerly Central Oregon Battering & Rape Alliance, said the nonprofit lowered ticket prices for its recent gala fundraiser and changed the way it asked attendees to contribute.
“When we did our ask, we asked for a lesser amount from everyone,” Schukart said. “It was more like, ‘If everyone gives 50 bucks, this is what we can do with it,’ rather than, ‘Who will give $5,000?’”
Schukart said the nonprofit has not necessarily seen a dip in donations, but they’re smaller. They’re still coming in, though, she said.
“I think that some people are even more generous in these times, given that they can understand our clients’ needs better. They can see it,” Schukart said.
Dahnesh Medora, the director of Strategic Initiatives for the nonprofit consulting firm Technical Assistance for Community Service in Portland, said that although Oregon has a history of increasing its donations every year for the past 40 years, there are several things nonprofits can do to maintain donations during a downturn. Among them: hone the message.
“It’s really important to communicate the value of the contributions you are getting,” Medora said.
This can be easier for nonprofits that plant trees or show some other tangible benefit, he said. Opening minds is a little harder to quantify, said Medora, but it’s important to develop ways to spread that message.
Another important step is “deepening” existing donor relationships, he said.
“Much like in business, it’s cheaper to keep existing business than lose a customer and try to get a new one, so finding ways to deepen the relationship is all the more important in tough economic times,” Medora said.
In the case of the St. Charles Foundation, which supports Cascade Healthcare Community in its operation of St. Charles Bend and other area hospitals, the foundation combined its internal employee drive with United Way’s annual drive. This was done because of the downturn and meant organizers only had to make one pitch to employees, said Todd Shields, a CHC caregiver and loaned executive with United Way.
In addition, the drive switched from a monetary goal to a participatory goal, Shields said.
“If people can’t give money, they can volunteer, so we have lots of caregivers, and we can do lots of good in the community by helping others out, so it was a ... different concept from the past,” Shields said.
Even with the change in focus, the drive raised 18 percent more money this year compared with last, Shields said.
“We were really concerned it would be difficult to raise funds in this tough economy, but our caregivers embody the spirit, and we were able to achieve more than we anticipated,” added Shields.
Getting creative
Terianne Petzold, the director of campaign and marketing for United Way of Deschutes County, also recommends creativity and fun.
An example, she said, is NeighborImpact’s current “Stuff the Bus” campaign. Through radio advertisements, the campaign asks Central Oregonians to fill a Mt. Bachelor ski area bus with food to replenish Neighbor-Impact’s food bank.
“People can give food, so it’s that creative way of saying, ‘It’s not just about money,’” Petzold said.
Even in down economic times, donations can be strong because people are more exposed to suffering around them, Petzold said, adding that the nation saw “incredible” increases in philanthropy during the Great Depression. The trick for nonprofits is not so much to appeal for money but for help.
“If you ask people to give, they say, ‘I don’t have anything to give,’ but if you talk about what you’re doing, it gets them into the spirit and gets them thinking about ways they can help,” Petzold said.
Medora said more than 50 percent of Oregon’s nonprofits have budgets of less than $100,000 and are well-suited to surviving a downturn.
“These are organizations that are pretty creative and pretty resilient in tough economic times — that are used to making do with very little,” Medora said.
According to Medora, Oregonians who earned less than $75,000 annually gave the greatest proportion of their income to nonprofits in 2006. Medora added that Oregon ranks 20th nationally in terms of giving by percentage of income, based on 2005 data from the Oregon Community Foundation.
The foundation also reports that in 2005, the last year full data is available, Deschutes County had 386 nonprofits that received more than $31 million in donations. The majority of those donations went to health-related nonprofits.
Andrew Moore can be reached at 541-617-7820 or amoore@bendbulletin.com.
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