Fundraising Forecast

The Non-Profit Times published an article this week that paints a rather bleak outlook for the remainder of the year.  The organization surveys charitable organizations and fundraisers and then scores activities and attitudes on a 3-point scale in an effort to thumbnail the philanthropic environment. 

The study shows giving was down through the front end of 2009; a decline that followed a trend starting in 2008.  This should surprise no one given the US and global economic challenges in the recent past.  Interesting in the study is a notion that professional fundraisers are, for the most part, optimistic about the future in spite of the significant downturns.

Taken from the article: “The steep decline in confidence in current fundraising conditions confirms that nonprofits are still encountering difficult times and anticipate that they may be facing more ahead,” said Patrick M. Rooney, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy. “There is an interesting dichotomy between the decrease in the fundraisers’ perceptions of the present situation and the increase in their expectations for the future. This is likely a reflection of continued uncertainty about where the economy may be headed.”

If I read this correctly, the bulletpoints are:

• We don’t know what’s happening.
• We’re in a pretty good mood.

Here’s what we expect to happen for the next several years.  Organizations that have relied on large, individual contributions from traditional funding streams are at risk as the philanthropic bodies have had to tighten their belts and scrutinize their spending.  The lessons learned will not be forgotten quickly.  This means that only the best projects, the best proposals and the best “bang for the buck” will see the donor dollars from foundations.  In a nutshell, it will remain difficult for smaller organizations with limited resources to compete against large, well-heeled charities.

For the smaller, independent groups there is a terrific opportunity outside the historical habit of applying for grants and donations.  Maybe this is the perfect time to cut away from the herd and expand your base at the same time.  Consider what your organization would look like if the focus shifted from gathering a small number of large donations…to a large number of small donations.  I have a hunch that an organization with 5000 smaller contributors…would fare better than a group with ten contributors…if they both happen to lose four of those revenue sources.

Now, for the “glass is half-empty” crowd…there’s a particularly dismal thumbnail of humans and their lot in life buried in the pages of McLean’s Magazine.  Now, let’s see if you can get through the next paragraph without picking out a terrifically tall building with a balcony…

Consider the darkness of human experience, he suggests, from the moment of our birth to our last sigh, in the light of the great modern promise that everyone can find happiness in love and work. The chances of anyone succeeding in one of those areas, let alone both, de Botton argues, are vanishingly slim. “And when an exception is misrepresented as a rule, our individual misfortunes, instead of seeming to us quasi-inevitable aspects of life, will weigh down on us like particular curses. In denying the natural place of longing and incompleteness in the human lot, modern ideology denies us a collective consolation for our fractious marriages and our unexploited ambitions.” We are left, instead, with solitary feelings of shame, failure and persecution.

You should agree with the above if, and only if, you’re content to compromise and accept the status quo.  Perhaps it’s enough to wonder if the above article and the numbers from NP Times might apply to “other” non-profits because we know there are always reasons to invest in worthwhile projects.  If philanthropic spending has dropped by 30 percent (for example)…we should still be pretty interested in finding solutions for the remaining 70 per cent.  We also know that, in certain situations, it gets easier when the competition buys into the hype, focuses on the dip…and ignores the obvious.

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