cause CT

What can a benefit concert raise?

jamesmschaffer — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 12:56:52 +0000

It’s interesting to watch benchmarks for various forms of fundraising. Garth Brooks, the country-music star, has sold out nine December concerts to raise $3.5-million to support Nashville flood-relief efforts through the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. The benefit concerts brought 48-year-old Mr. Brooks out of a 10-year retirement. According to The Washington Post, more than 140,000 tickets, at $25 apiece, were sold, breaking all records for Tennessee. To keep it all in perspective, the flooding in Nashville in May caused more than $2-billion in damage.

How a colossal disappointment affirms that fundraising is first and foremost about relationships

jamesmschaffer — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 17:43:47 +0000

Here in today’s NYT is a perfect example of how new technology (such as texting donations) can greatly facilitate, but not on its own motivate people to support your cause. That so much planning and cost and especially rarefied and quality exposure even for a very reputable charity can produce so very little, is a reminder that fundraising is primarily about relationships, and secondarily about everything else.

Share Our Strength tried a mobile giving campaign in early 2009. AT&T paid for a substantial portion of the promotional costs, which included advertising in airports and a public service announcement that ran during Sunday morning talk shows, as well as an internal push to its 300,000 employees. Share Our Strength devoted space on its Web page to the campaign and reached out to bloggers and others to publicize it.

“We threw a lot of spaghetti on the wall and tried to learn from what stuck,” Ms. Twohig said.

The effort raised about $14,000, the group said.

Nordstrom to Open Experimental Store for Philanthropy

jamesmschaffer — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:24:02 +0000

Nordstrom is opening a store in Manhattan in the Soho neighborhood dedicated to philanthropy sometime next year. No more details other than profits will go to charity. The news may have leaked prematurely.

The 109-year old company, which began as a shoe store, operates 112 department stores (two in CT), 68 Nordstrom Rack clearance stores, two Jeffrey Boutiques, and one final clearance store in 28 states.

When they opened their store in MA in 2007 at the newly renovated and upscale Natick Collection, Nordstrom raised over $2,500,000 for the Boston Museum of Science and Boston Ballet.

For Nordstrom or any store, cause marketing is still relevant and something for your cause to pitch.

Your Year-End Appeal in Bonus Season

jamesmschaffer — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:09:15 +0000

Inasmuch as many Wall Street titans live in CT, it will serve your charity well to consider who among your donors and prospective donors might receive a bonus in the next few months that exceeds the total annual giving of most CT foundations. The Wall Street Journal recently estimated that Wall Street bonuses in 2010 will total $144 billion. Goldman Sachs set aside $13.1 billion in bonuses this year. At Morgan Stanley, half of the $24 billion in revenue the firm generated in the first nine months of the year is earmarked for compensation. And so it goes. You have your year-end appeal, a one-size-fits-all affair. You will do well to give that Goldman Sachs family a tour and make your “ask” up-close and personal.

Top Charities on Twitter

jamesmschaffer — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:16:11 +0000

Following are the counts for the top charities, based on how many followers they had as of the middle of this week, per The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Charity: Water (@charitywater) 1,308,128
Room to Read (@RoomtoRead) 457,158
ONE (@ONECampaign) 452,002
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (@gatesfoundation) 430,549
DoSomething.org (@dosomething) 366,737
Water.org (@Water) 365,230
Creative Commons (@creativecommons) 364,809
Kiva (@Kiva) 357,148
Care (@CARE) 350,785
The Case Foundation (@CaseFoundation) 338,283
Acumen Fund (@acumenfund) 326,138
Ashoka (@AshokaTweets) 322,734
Skoll Foundation (@SkollFoundation) 320,057
Samasource (@Samasource) 314,298
Witness (@witnessorg) 276,553
Unicef (@UNICEF) 209,690
American Red Cross (@RedCross) 208,660
World Wildlife Fund (@WWF) 159,353
Greenpeace International (@Greenpeace) 109,579
Save the Children (@savethechildren) 106,162

44th Annual Film & Video Festival Invites Submissions

jamesmschaffer — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 02:08:15 +0000

The Council on Foundations’ 44th Annual Film & Video Festival, to be held April 10-12, 2011, in Philadelphia is seeking submissions of films and videos.

Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media (GFEM) has partnered with the Council on Foundations to organize the annual Film & Video Festival showcasing some of the most important independent filmmakers of our generation. Here is a link to some of these media projects.

The Festival has explored innovative approaches to using media to affect society. It has given voice to unheard voices in society and illuminated important issues. And it has demonstrated how foundations can leverage their resources through media. The films, videos, and television programs that have received support from foundations, corporate giving programs, and donor networks have encouraged grantmakers to use media to advance their philanthropic goals and to expand the boundaries of the use of media for the social good.

Causes.com at #854 is the only charity on Google’s list of the top 1,000 Internet sites

jamesmschaffer — Mon, 31 May 2010 19:12:16 +0000

Google’s current list of the world’s one-thousand most visited sites on the Web does not include a nonprofit cause until you reach Number 854, (Facebook’s answer to charity) Causes.com. Despite all that we do and say, as absorbed as we are in our world of causes, the world we are trying to reach with our respective calls-to-action is still hardly listening, at least online. Fundraising will always be mostly about relationships (as Causes.com confirms) and those still mostly happen in the material world.

A message from IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman to small tax-exempt organizations

jamesmschaffer — Mon, 24 May 2010 18:25:31 +0000

Now that the May 17 filing deadline has passed, it appears that many small tax-exempt organizations have not filed the required information return in time. These organizations are vital to communities across the United States, and I understand their concerns about possibly losing their tax-exempt status. Small tax-exempt organizations are those whose annual gross receipts are normally $25,000 or less.

The IRS has conducted an unprecedented outreach effort in the tax-exempt sector on the 2006 law’s new filing requirements, but many of these smaller organizations are just now learning of the May 17 deadline. I want to reassure these small organizations that the IRS will do what it can to help them avoid losing their tax-exempt status.

The IRS will be providing additional guidance in the near future on how it will help these organizations maintain their important tax-exempt status – even if they missed the May 17 deadline. The guidance will offer relief to these small organizations and provide them with the opportunity to keep their critical tax-exempt status intact.

So I urge these organizations to go ahead and file – even though the May 17 deadline has passed.

Filing a tax return for the small organizations is easier than you’d think. It just takes a few minutes to fill out the electronic notice Form 990-N (e-Postcard). This is available for small tax-exempt organizations with annual receipts of $25,000 or less.

The web address for more information is www.irs.gov/charities.

Interesting, if creepy, article on prospect and donor research

jamesmschaffer — Thu, 20 May 2010 12:39:21 +0000

This Smart Money article delves into the art of spying on donors. We can now survey salary history, scan LinkedIn connections, and use Google’s satellite images to survey homes and their neighborhoods. Some are skilled enough to keep better tabs than the donors on their own financial status.

The Giving Network – using social networking tools to advance your cause

jamesmschaffer — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:41:42 +0000

Water.org, co-founded by Matt Damon and Gary White, today introduced The Giving Network, a new social media platform that empowers nonprofits to engage people in a more compelling, collaborative experience around social issues and causes while making it easier than ever to share those experiences with friends and followers across their social networks.

Just a few days ago actor Edward Norton launched a similar initiative called Crowdrise (described in the earlier post below).

The Giving Network will be made available to nonprofits to adapt and customize as needed to serve their key stakeholder communities and project goals. The platform was built using the Django framework and incorporates support for Facebook(R) Platform, Twitter and Google Maps while also integrating content from Flickr, Vimeo and WordPress. A first example of how it could be applied is their Water.org, a beta implementation of the project that allows online communities to track clean water and sanitation projects in Tigray, Ethiopia. This site will serve as a user testing platform to collect feedback for future releases of the project.

These are great ways to use existing social networking tools to help people self-organize around key projects and interests.