Who made him the moderator of what causes are worthy?  And how did education and healthcare – two of the sectors he appears to believe are over-funded – become somehow disassociated from “the poor, people of color” etc.?  In fact, a good education and decent health are closely associated with upward socioeconomic mobility – with a bachelor’s degree worth nearly $1 million more in lifelong earnings than a high school diploma.  So, gee, maybe those “stingier” wealthy donors who are giving to “universities and colleges (and) medical organizations” actually understand something about opportunity, responsibility, and impact of giving that Mr. Eisenberg doesn’t.

While his critique of foundation practices is not entirely unfounded – even those who work in the sector know that greater flexibility and efficiencies would help them do their work – his proposed solutions are as naïve and generalized as the freshman compositions I used to correct.  You can’t simultaneously “simplify reporting” and “improve accountability” – not, at least, without adding a lot of staff who would make it even more difficult to dispense more dollars.  And the concluding notion that big donors will buy newspapers so they can serve a watchdog function is laughable – unless, of course, he has convinced Rupert Murdoch to turn the Wall Street Journal into an organ crusading on behalf of those people whom Mr. Eisenberg seems to feel are being underserved by foundations and private philanthropists.

If that happens, and the Journal begins to sound progressive and concerned about the plight of the oppressed and neglected, I’ll humbly apologize.  In the meantime, you have to wonder what the Journal’s agenda is in publishing this set of recommendations – all of which chip away at the validity of organizations that often pursue a “collectivist” agenda that Journal editors would oppose.  Has Mr. Eisenberg knowingly or unwittingly delivered more ammunition into the hands of those who would like to see the whole sector crippled – regardless of the effect on the populations that those organizations, however imperfectly, serve?

- Robert Moore, Ph.D., Managing Partner

Last week, we hosted a group of Chicago-area development officers who shared their opinions on the challenges of raising money during a crisis. One director reported that annual giving to her program was down 70 percent. Good will and warm feelings won’t solve her problem. So what will?

I wish our group had an easy answer for her, but the consensus suggested that going back to basics was essential: building a case, connecting with donors (often one-on-one) and helping them understand the long-term and emotional impact of their giving. We’ll be sharing more of the dialog in the coming weeks, so come back for more…. But in the meantime, we’d love to hear about your experience. What’s working for you?

- Sara Stern, Executive Vice President, Creative Services

But hold on—that sentence is fairly packed with qualifiers. Retaining donors is always hard. Would we be surprised to learn that the experience of making a gift online—pressing a button and watching dollars fly from our accounts into the recesses of the internet—is one donors might not relish?  Recall that just a few years ago, retailers struggled to project if and when online purchasing would take off; they predicted that consumer confidence would hinge on seeing UPS packages on their doorsteps. And so it did. Many online donors, meanwhile, receive not so much as an electronic acknowledgement, if one blogger’s experience is any indication.

Yes, spam filters are at work, and opt-outs, and so forth. But those hindrances also tell us how depersonalized giving has become, especially for first-time donors, and doubly especially for online donors. If online giving is to reach its potential as a tool, we need to infuse the experience with personality and humanity. We need to make sure donors receive their receipts, and we also need to make sure they feel thanked.

As social media darling Blue State Digital notes, 40 percent of online donors to the Obama campaign were repeat donors. But they were also seeing daily, if not hourly, reports of the cumulative value of their giving, and the immediate translation of donations into campaign events, rousing speeches, and polling bumps. Why, it was almost as if the donations had…impact.

What do others think? Can fundraising become less of a numbers game, and more of a legit human encounter? Can social media— Facebook, cause Twittering— help?

- Colleen O’Grady, Senior Writer

An accelerated integrated marketing(AIM) and enrollment services client, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) made headlines today as one of the beneficiaries of a mystery that is unfolding in the world of college fundraising: During the past few weeks, at least nine universities have received gifts totaling more than $45 million, and the schools had to promise not to try to find out the giver’s identity. Read more about this timely financial surprise.

The 2008 Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy – researched and written by staff at The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, with sponsorship by Bank of America – suggests that the nation’s high income households were fully aware of the slowing economy even in 2007, and adjusted their giving accordingly.  The study contains the responses from nearly 700 individuals with an average net worth of $12.6 million.

Economists now say that the recession began in December 2007, and overall individual giving decreased 2.6 percent from 2005 to 2007, adjusted for inflation.  IRS and Bank of America data indicates that charitable giving by high income households declined 9.7 percent in this same period.  Interestingly, the majority of high income households increased their giving over this period – with the exception of  households with $5 million or more in income. It’s these households that bring down the average giving number for this period. What did they know that we didn’t – and how did they know it?

Other key findings from the report:

•    Volunteering and Board service are closely linked with higher levels of giving.
•    Educational institutions received the highest average donation of any type of institution.
•    “Giving back” is cited as the most compelling reason to give.
•    Donors believe that giving is personally fulfilling (“in tough times, giving is heroic.” )
•    Respondents believe philanthropic modeling is an important part of child raising.
•    Regular attendees at religious services give more than non-attendees.
•    More than anything else, people expect nonprofits to operate on sound business principles.

In future blogs, we’ll drill deeper into the data and try to offer some additional insights from our experience.  In the meantime,  you may want to dig into it yourself.

No, it was something else: “In tough times, giving is heroic.”  Think about it.  When an individual steps forward in a time of uncertainty or risk, and does something that matters – something selfless that saves lives or otherwise makes a real difference – that person is seen as a hero.  And what could be more quietly heroic than stepping forward and asserting with a gift that the light at the end of the tunnel is not the headlight of an oncoming train, but is indeed brighter times ahead?

Giving is emotional, and choosing to give now is an emotional investment in those organizations or causes that each of us holds near and dear.  And nonprofits must celebrate this core understanding and ratify the emotional risk/reward for donors who stay loyal and committed in this unsettled economic situation.  The motivating emotions are complex:  I am not alone.  I can do something that matters. We will get through this together.

Andy Gladstein, a panelist in Curt’s plenary who has been a generous contributor to Indiana University, talked about two dimensions of the decision to give.  The first is classic: “My dad believed that philanthropy was a civic responsibility, and we’ve passed that lesson on to our kids.”  The second is purely emotional:  “I felt guilty because I felt so good about what we were doing.”  I don’t know if heroes feel guilty, but they sure feel good.

Let’s celebrate our quiet heroes.

- Rob Moore, Managing Partner

Strategic Communications During Difficult Times – Free Legal Forms

These are important questions in the midst of the largest economic downturn in decades—and they go to the very heart of how well nonprofits will fare in this difficult time.

Some good and detailed analysis is out there, but none of it lends itself to the blurb-happy blogosphere. Take, for example, reports from the respected Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University that since 1956, in inflation-adjusted dollars, giving falls slightly in recession years —by 2.7 percent in years with eight or more recession months, and as much as 5.4 percent in a single very bad year. The same report states that before adjusting for inflation, charitable giving has increased in all years except 1987. Both are true. Pulled out of context, each little statistical nugget makes it easy to misunderstand (or misrepresent) an intricate situation.

When it comes to measuring the scale and quality of giving, we’re touching an elephant, blindfolded: What it seems to be depends mostly on where you’re standing.  A single large bequest can obscure the loss of thousands of significantly sized gifts. A transfer of assets into a foundation counts as “giving” to a nonprofit, though in terms of immediate impact it’s more like moving a wad of cash from your back pocket to your purse. In the meantime, some categories of giving are actually increasing by leaps and bounds.

So, how do we get at the heart of whether the donors we need will step up? I think this is where stories trump statistics. This summer, I was waiting to fly standby out of somewhere stormy and Midwestern. I scanned the crowd’s body language—are people hopeful, are we going to fly?—when an odd couple caught my attention: a soldier in full combat uniform who looked barely 20, and an older woman fully coiffured. She could have been a relative, but they weren’t exactly having the classic emotionally charged airport moment. Yet they were in league with each other somehow, consulting and chatting cordially.

We boarded. The soldier, now seated behind me, buckled in and called home. His flight had been cancelled, yes. But he had a ticket and would be there tonight, not tomorrow, because “this lady in the boarding area” had traded her high-value ticket for two coach seats. He didn’t know her name. I certainly never learned it. She’d used her miles or whatever to quietly give this stranger more time with his family. Her gesture won’t be tracked in any year-end accounting, but she will feel it, and so will the man she helped.

Giving will continue, in smaller and larger increments, because people take pleasure in using what they have to help others, and they’ll get creative to make it work when they know it really matters. Talk to one donor who did give this year. Ask why he or she did it and what it means personally now. Feel that? That’s relevance, and it’s real.

- Colleen O’Grady, Senior Writer