Experts-on-everything McKinsey & Co. issued its official recommendations to the US Postal Service at a conference in Washington this week. While they are only recommendations and are non-binding (a USPS spokesperson said the consultant was instructed to “investigate all possible options”), Bloomberg News stresses in its report that not only would it be good to eliminate Saturday mail, but also 2 other days as well. (Read on …)
Thanks, DMA Nonprofit Federation, for passing along this article from Politco’s Ben Smith about how President Obama’s proposed budget affects non-profits. A proposal in Obama’s 2009 budget that would reduce the value of deductions such as mortgage interest and charitable contributions for people in the highest tax brackets was widely assumed by many from all over the political spectrum to result in lower contributions to non-profits from the affected populations. And as a result, the proposal was killed in the House.
But now, it’s back. (Read on …)
Our Director of Database Marketing & Analysis, Maciej Przybylowski, handed me a great article from the Wall Street Journal this morning that, while somewhat negative about the future of nonprofits, speaks to the need for organizations to become more efficient if they are going to survive this recession. Of course, the stories of those that haven’t made it are often heart-rending, especially if they work in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless or paying for the education of inner-city youth.
But looking at this from a solely business perspective, maybe there are just too many non-profits right now. (Read on …)
One of the hallmarks of today’s philanthropy is the watchdog-like quality held by many donors to use how an organization spends its money as a criteria for support. Often they decide whether or not to support an organization at all based solely on the ratio of money spent on non-mission related activities.
This is partly inspired by the easy access to information the internet has brought us. And of course the biggest source of this kind of information beyond the IRS’ database of Form 990s is “Charity Navigator” who’ve made a whole industry of its rating system. The fate of non-profits often rests in their hands. And why shouldn’t donors have that kind of information? Seems fair. But is it the best way? (Read on …)
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal featured an opinion piece by Pablo Eisenberg that took foundations to task for how they support and work with non-profits. In it, he decried many things in a list of recommendations, but notably the decrease in funding foundations are providing organizations in these troubled economic times.
What stuck out to me was how that is such a good reason for non-profits to have diverse sources of funding. Too many groups – especially small ones – are either so reliant on a handful of major gifts (including from foundations) or have a full-time staffer dedicated to filling out mountains of foundation grant requests – usually without much success – yet haven’t even thought of an individual giving program. (Read on …)
The New York Times lauds individual donors today calling them “philanthropy’s newest hero.”
“We are deluded by the attention paid to the large contributors in our country,” said Wendy Smith, author of “Give A Little: How Your Small Donations Can Transform the World.”
“Small checks coming through the mail are the bread and butter for most organizations.”
The Management Centre, a UK-based consulting group for non-profits, has published its Global Fundraising Confidence Survey for 2009 and from our perspective many of the results they highlighted weren’t too surprising. Most notably, although half of the non-profits surveyed reported a decline in income over the past year, a third saw in an increase.
Among the reasons cited for decline was “poor crisis leadership” from the top, while — and this is what we want to stress most — the top listed factor for positive results was “increased investment in fundraising.” (Read on …)
Just a quick link to yesterday’s “Wizard of ID” comic strip. One thing I like to mention in my lecture on online fundraising at NYU’s Graduate School of Philanthropy is how the internet has inspired greater vigilance by donors and required greater accountability on the part of not-for-profits. Even if that increased reporting doesn’t take place online.
Library Journal, the oldest and most respected publication covering the library field, has named our long-time client-partner Queens Borough Public Library the library of the year! The news will be officially announced in the cover story of the June 15th issue of the magazine (although some details are available now at the library’s website) and at a reception in Chicago in July, during the annual conference of the American Library Association.
LJ’s editor-at-large cited the “abililty of the managers and staff to provide an incredibly diverse set of services and continue the constant modernization of the 62 libraries” in the Queens library system. Library CEO Thomas Galante listed some of those services: “For homework help, for assistance in finding a job, to prepare to take a professional licensing exam or the citizenhip test, to learn English or to find a healthcare provider that will give a free mammogram and who also speaks Russian – that’s why the community relies on Queens Library.”
Congrats are in order all around — keep up the great work, Queens!
The Giving USA Foundation’s annual philanthropy report, released yesterday, indicates that while giving was down last year, it didn’t go down as much as people thought. Specifically, it declined by just 2%. But it was the second year in a row where total giving was more than $300 billion. So, not bad, all things considered. NPR’s Morning Edition has a nice summary on their website.
Numbers from our own clients are encouraging too. Our experienced analytics team just completed a study comparing our August and November 2008 public broadcasting co-op campaigns — the first two campaigns right around the bad economic news breaking. Overall, there was definitely a dip in August, but November rebounded quite nicely. Whether that is a trend or not remains to be seen.