Philanthropic fun
Several businesses and nonprofit agencies will hold special events on Sept. 18 to punch up what’s likely to be a record-setting philanthropic day in Clark County. Here’s a rundown.
• Share: The “2014 Share Games” are set for 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Share Fromhold Service Center, 2306 N.E. Andresen Rd. Join local celebrities including Mayor Tim Leavitt in such games as backpack stuffing, celebrity hopscotch, outdoor bowling, dunk tank and lip-sync battle. Lunch and dinner will be available for purchase.
• Beaches: From 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at Beaches Restaurant and Bar, 1919 S.E. Columbia River Dr., you can tell your server you’re dining for “Give More 24!” and half of your tab will be donated to the pool of extra prize dollars.
• Big Al’s: From 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., you can bowl at Big Al’s, 16615 S.E. 18th St., on behalf of Medical Teams International and its mobile dental program for the uninsured.
Philanthropic fun
Several businesses and nonprofit agencies will hold special events on Sept. 18 to punch up what's likely to be a record-setting philanthropic day in Clark County. Here's a rundown.
• Share: The "2014 Share Games" are set for 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Share Fromhold Service Center, 2306 N.E. Andresen Rd. Join local celebrities including Mayor Tim Leavitt in such games as backpack stuffing, celebrity hopscotch, outdoor bowling, dunk tank and lip-sync battle. Lunch and dinner will be available for purchase.
• Beaches: From 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at Beaches Restaurant and Bar, 1919 S.E. Columbia River Dr., you can tell your server you're dining for "Give More 24!" and half of your tab will be donated to the pool of extra prize dollars.
• Big Al's: From 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., you can bowl at Big Al's, 16615 S.E. 18th St., on behalf of Medical Teams International and its mobile dental program for the uninsured.
• Downtown: From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., supporters of Vancouver's Downtown Association will staff an Open-Air Office on the sidewalk near Main and Evergreen -- a bit of living performance art -- to encourage donations for VDA's public art projects.
• Downtown: From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., supporters of Vancouver’s Downtown Association will staff an Open-Air Office on the sidewalk near Main and Evergreen — a bit of living performance art — to encourage donations for VDA’s public art projects.
Did you know?
Giving down but recovering, partnerships up
According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics and its annual “Giving USA” report, private charitable contributions have fallen by nearly 10 percent since 2005 when adjusted for inflation. The largest declines in charitable giving were in 2008 and 2009, as the Great Recession took hold. There has been modest growth again each year since 2010, but “it has not recovered to pre-recession levels,” the report said.
The year 2013 was the best year since the recession, according to Blackbaud, a technology and data firm that works with the nonprofit sector. Blackbaud has reported that overall charitable giving in the United States was up 4.9% in 2013 over 2012, and online giving was up 13.5 percent.
And, according to a 2012 report from the University of Washington’s School of Public Affairs called “Nimble Nonprofits: Taking Nothing for Granted in an Era of Constant Change,” government and foundation funding of nonprofit agencies has been on the wane for years, and a post-recession “new normal” has proved elusive.
As never before, the report says, nonprofits are turning to individual donors for dollars, to volunteer labor for unpaid help and to one another as important collaborators: “This is one area in which there may indeed be a new normal, as it appears that the emphasis on identifying and nurturing meaningful partnerships is here to stay — and in many cases generating more powerful alliances than ever before.”
On the Web
For more information, go to:
www.Give-More-24.org
www.cfsww.org
Every day can be a day to give to charity. But if you want to maximize your effectiveness as a donor, make an online gift sometime during the 24-hour window that begins at 7 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 18.
That’s the official start of “Give More 24!” — a special day of giving organized by the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington, a powerful grant-making agency that sustains the efforts of many other local nonprofit groups.
Nearly 90 groups have signed up to be beneficiaries of this daylong effort to punch up individual charitable giving in Southwest Washington, and the Community Foundation has made it not only easy but extra rewarding to make online donations on Sept. 18 (and the wee hours of Sept. 19).
Did you know?
Giving down but recovering, partnerships up
According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics and its annual "Giving USA" report, private charitable contributions have fallen by nearly 10 percent since 2005 when adjusted for inflation. The largest declines in charitable giving were in 2008 and 2009, as the Great Recession took hold. There has been modest growth again each year since 2010, but "it has not recovered to pre-recession levels," the report said.
The year 2013 was the best year since the recession, according to Blackbaud, a technology and data firm that works with the nonprofit sector. Blackbaud has reported that overall charitable giving in the United States was up 4.9% in 2013 over 2012, and online giving was up 13.5 percent.
And, according to a 2012 report from the University of Washington's School of Public Affairs called "Nimble Nonprofits: Taking Nothing for Granted in an Era of Constant Change," government and foundation funding of nonprofit agencies has been on the wane for years, and a post-recession "new normal" has proved elusive.
As never before, the report says, nonprofits are turning to individual donors for dollars, to volunteer labor for unpaid help and to one another as important collaborators: "This is one area in which there may indeed be a new normal, as it appears that the emphasis on identifying and nurturing meaningful partnerships is here to stay -- and in many cases generating more powerful alliances than ever before."
The minimum donation is just $10, and every donation will be automatically multiplied via a “stretch pool” of $75,000 contributed by clinical psychologist Candace Young and Nancy Lematta, the widow of businessman and philanthropist Wes Lematta.
Once the event is over, that pool of funds will be divvied up proportionally, according to the contributions that each beneficiary has received. Every gift will leverage a boost, and all beneficiaries will wind up with some bonus from the pool, Community Foundation spokesman Maury Harris said.
“That’s the idea with `Give More’,” Harris said. “Each gift will be stretched.”
Visit www.Give-More-24.org to peruse a list and descriptions of all the charities involved, from the American Red Cross of Southwest Washington to the YWCA Clark County. Or, start exploring by general area of interest, from animal welfare to youth development. The website is already up and running, if you want to sign up now for email reminders and updates. During the event, you’ll also be able to poke your Facebook friends with news that you donated, and they should, too.
All of this is designed to tap into our increasingly electronic culture, Harris said, and to activate a cohort of younger, less wealthy but more plugged-in philanthropists of the future.
“The world of philanthropy is moving from analog to digital,” he said. “It is focusing on a younger generation that’s more comfortable online. That’s not our normal constituency, but our goal is to reach the whole community with the idea that everybody can be a philanthropist.”
Live updates on the website will allow charity fans to track donation totals and progress toward additional $1,000 prizes that nonprofits can win for amassing gifts at certain times of day — during 10 a.m. coffee break, for example, as well as lunch hour, afternoon break, happy hour and midnight. There’s even an “insomniac prize” for the nonprofit that gets the most donations between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Sept. 19, and a final $1,000 boost for the individual gift that puts the entire effort over the finish line organizers are dreaming of: $500,000 in total donations in one day.
All “Give More 24!” gifts are 100 percent tax deductible. Immediately after making a contribution, you’ll receive a confirmation email from the Community Foundation. Credit and debit card fees do apply, so what winds up in the bank account of your favorite charity will be 93 percent of what you donated. The Community Foundation won’t make any money by handling these transactions, but it is one of the possible beneficiaries you can choose.
Events and celebrations during the day (see box) will aim to stoke up a wave of fun and excitement about charitable giving. Community Foundation President Jennifer Rhoads said she wants to refute the idea that local nonprofits must fight over inadequate local resources. “This event is not about competition,” she said. “The goal is to work together as nonprofits and donors, to create a buzz about our community and an effort that empowers everyone … to take part in making it better.”
Social phenomenon
Nonprofits used to rely more on personal relationships with dedicated, deep-pocketed donors, according to Jeanne Kojis, executive director of the Nonprofit Network Southwest Washington.
But untold thousands of people who recently dumped buckets of ice water on their heads to raise money for the fight against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are living proof that fun and excitement are the new names of the fundraising game.
“People want to be engaged and they want to be social,” Kojis said. We don’t just want to write a check and be done with it; we want our charity to be as appealingly visual as everything else we do. It all seems like part of a sophisticated modern lifestyle: communal, recreational, electronic, maybe slightly ironic.
Charity walks, runs and even amateur sports tournaments seem to take place every summer weekend all across the nation. But online, real-time charitable events are the latest trend. Last year saw an experimental, local Giving Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which was moderately successful for a first-ever effort, Kojis said, while The Seattle Foundation’s fourth annual “Give Big Day” raised $12.8 million online on a single day in May.
“Nonprofits are supposed to be about people coming together to work toward the common good. If we need to use different communication tools now to reach out to people, to tell a story and capture their imagination,” Kojis said, then so be it. “The ice bucket challenge is a phenomenon, and it’s great that they raised all that money.”
Facts v. stunts
But charitable acts that really are performances for the video camera and ultimately for Facebook have also generated criticisms that the whole trend is shallow and self-congratulatory; terms being tossed around lately are “slacktivism” — being more concerned with appearing cool than with whatever cause you’re supposedly passionate about — and “clicktivism” — activism that carries no farther than your keyboard and mouse, with no further activity or commitment at all.
Kojis worries that it all seems to underline a certain frivolousness. “People who work at nonprofits tend to think, ‘If they only understood what we’re doing, they would support us more,’ ” she said. “But facts and education don’t necessarily move people to donating,” she said; social media stunts seem to.
“Every board of directors is trying to figure out, how can we do that too?” she said.
It cuts both ways, Harris said. In the Internet age, people can get educated about needs and causes as never before and make “very informed gifts,” he said. And they can spread the word like wildfire; the runaway success of the ice bucket challenge is proof of that, he said. Call it frivolous, but the campaign has generated well over $100 million for the ALS Association this summer alone; the ALS Association raised $64 million in all of 2013.
“People connecting directly to people is incredibly powerful,” Harris said. “It’s certainly more powerful than getting a direct mail solicitation in your mailbox.”
